


To Build A Home

by Newt



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Crew as Family, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, I just love the IPRE crew so much, M/M, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-01-17 14:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12367935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Newt/pseuds/Newt
Summary: What the Starblaster was built to do, compared to what the Starblaster became, was a distance so incredible that it could not have been calculated by even the brightest minds on the IPRE staff. It was never meant to become a hundred-year home for a seven-hero family.Snippets of various moments aboard the Starblaster, from a hundred years of living and dying. Each chapter will focus on a different part of the ship, and what happened there as the years wore on.





	1. The Gangway

For as long as Davenport has been alive, he has dreamed of the stars.

A chilly breath floating upwards in the nighttime air. A tiny hand stretched towards a distant horizon. The smell of stale coffee as head hit desk with exhaustion, waking up with graphite on his cheek, backward words spelling out the distances between worlds. The space around him became a calculation, a matter of distances and chemical makeup, numbers floated above heads, a smile a function, a heart a machine. The stars called to him from overhead, the two suns counting out days and months and years spent gathering all of the knowledge he could, observations spreading across distances, piercing through space, tethering him to a speck in the universe. He graduated young, ascended the ranks of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, and carved out a comfortable place in his own world.

With every person he met at the IPRE, with every calculation and lunch break and tiny adventure in their tiny world, Davenport grew closer to the stars. Until, one day, his dreams of something more grew into reality, taking up space, numbers floating through time, the smell of metal and dust, time, time, time spent waiting with crackling nerves and stars in his eyes.

As he stood before the Starblaster, his researchers beside him, his crew in bright red jumpsuits putting the finishing touches on his beautiful brain child, he held back tears of joy. He swallowed the lump in his throat, croaked out a “thank you”, gazed into faces that glowed like the sun as they assured him that this was his, all for him, ready for the voyage that would change everything.

And it did.

Fate has a funny way of twisting things. Somewhere, distantly, through time and space, something was set into motion. A pencil scratching out a story. A pair of shoes pounding on pavement. An apple plucked from a tree. Two forms, huddled close in the cold. Glasses pushed up the bridge of a nose.

In yet another place, a Goddess’ knitting carried on.

What the Starblaster was built to do, compared to what the Starblaster became, was a distance so incredible that it could not have been calculated by even the brightest minds on the IPRE staff. A two month voyage into the stars, to gain knowledge for a purple-skied world that, of course, would still be there upon return. It was never meant to become a hundred-year home for a seven-hero family. Yarn crosses over yarn.

The last piece to be added to the ship was the gangway. A set of metal stairs, shiny and new, connecting the Starblaster to the world in which it was born. With time, the stairs would become worn by thousands, millions of steps to and from unimaginable places. Confident steps, tired steps, angry and scared and dragging steps, steps that were more of a dance, accompanied by laughter and hurried conversation and tears. 

Within the month, the Starblaster is prepped and ready for its first grand voyage through the planar system. The gangway lies at the edge of the IPRE complex, as its crew members don red robes nearby. A few final checks, and they’re ready to go. 

The first person to climb aboard is, of course, Davenport himself. He waves to the crowd below, scanning the faces of the people who have meant so much to him during his time at the institute. He senses a nervousness hanging over them, and tries to reassure them.

“Thank you all for working so hard. This is… it’s going to be a breeze.”

A few weak smiles. For the first time, Davenport’s gaze is focused downward, as he prepares to travel into the stars. 

He does not notice the storm rolling in overhead.

The rest of the crew follows, single file. A camera flashes below, and someone turns on a heel, clogging up the procession.

“Yeah, I’m gonna need royalties on any pictures you take. Just for the record.”

Taako is not a morning person. His eyes are heavy with sleep, and he huddles into his stylish robe-jacket combo, fighting off the early chill.

“Shh, it’s okay bud,” says Lup, rubbing his back with one hand while nursing a coffee with the other. She turns to the crowd, giving one huge wave.

“He’s cranky, it’s chill,” she says, then turns back to her twin. He shoots her a look, and she hides a smirk behind a sip of coffee. They start walking again, towards a frazzled-looking Davenport. She whispers to Taako’s back as he moves forward.

“Small fish, bro. Small fish. We’re gonna sell hella photos when we get back. Just be rolling in mad stacks.”

“Wait… we get paid for this?” breathes Magnus, coming up behind them with a cup of coffee in each hand, painting the air with columns of steam. The twins selectively don’t hear him, and he furrows his brow, deep in thought.

Lucretia’s walk is more dignified, as if she’s been practicing for this moment. She clutches two identical notebooks to her chest, her iron grip soothing her nerves slightly. She nods to the crowd, then realizes the crowd is not helping the whole nerves thing, and turns back to following the enormous man in front of her. Magnus, she thinks.

Barry Bluejeans wanders up behind her, fiddling with the hood of his new IPRE robe. It was inside out, he could’ve sworn it was. But now it seemed normal. He knew the robe was right because the pocket was on the right side. Or maybe it wasn’t? Some labs had double sided gowns, so he supposed this could be similar. But then why would the hood…

“Mmph!”

His scream is muffled as the hood is suddenly pulled over his head from behind. He pulls it off of himself, heat rising in his cheeks, and straightens his glasses before turning to face his attacker.

Merle stands behind him, clutching a staff that had apparently been used to hook Barry’s hood up and over his head. Merle himself is clutching his stomach in muffled laughter, trying to look collected for the crowds. 

“Wh…” 

“I fixed it for you,” Merle offers, shrugging slightly, wiping away a tear.

Barry pats at his hood. Sure enough, it’s lying mostly flat now. Unsure of how to respond to this, he just turns and hurries up the gangplank towards the others.

Merle’s legs are much shorter, and it takes a full ten awkward seconds for him to catch up and climb aboard.

And with that, the gangway is pulled back into flight position.

Another twist of the threads of fate. Seven red-clad crew members watch as all they’ve ever known is engulfed in darkness.

The gangway holds tight, just as it was designed to.

The storm calms. With clear hesitancy, the gangplank is lowered onto the ground of a world that the Starblaster’s designers had never dreamt of.

The first time the crew climbs down the gangplank into a new world, their steps are slow and uncertain. Some of them are wracked with sorrow. Some, it’s fear that has the greatest hold. All of them carry a feeling of loss in their gait as they step out into this unknown world.

With time, their steps become surer. Their losses are never forgotten, but the thrill of discovery consumes them, and they each move forward in their own way. 

“Magnus… you’ve got to stop this,” says Davenport, from the top of the gangway. 

Magnus falters, holding his arms closer to his chest.

It’s almost funny, to see Davenport, tiny and fragile, with his arms spread out to block the doorway. Magnus knows he could just, kind of, step over him? If he wanted to. But this is his Captain! So he’s at least gonna listen to what he has to say.

“Stop… what?” Magnus asks, voice dripping with guilt.

Davenport pinches the bridge of his nose.

“Take off your jacket, Magnus.”

Magnus’ pulse picks up.

“But… it’s cold.”

The sun beats down. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of Magnus’ head. He tries his best to look Cap’n’port in the eye.

There’s a short silence.

“Magnus.”

“Okay, fine!” says Magnus, throwing up his hands, but leaning backwards slightly so his friend doesn’t fall.

In one quick movement, he takes off the jacket, and holds it by the edges behind his back. It squirms slightly. 

“Magnus, please.”

A few months ago, Magnus might have kept this up a little longer. But the Power Bear was just teaching him something about how to recognize defeat. So he was being caught in a bad moment. Unfair.

He brings the jacket around, and lays it down in front of him, gently unwrapping a tiny baby bunny. It’s probably the cutest thing he’s ever seen, which is why he needed to help it.

Davenport taps his foot impatiently.

“Magnus! You can’t keep bringing every baby animal you find up to the ship! They talk here. They’ve got, I don’t know, families…”

“Where is momma?” asks the rabbit, cocking its head adorably.

“He told me he was hungry! I couldn’t find his mom so I took him here for a snack,” says Magnus, scooping the rabbit up into his arms.

“I miss my momma. She is so nice and fun. I hope that someday I can see her again,” says the rabbit, rolling around in Magnus’ grip.

Davenport sighs.

“Just… take it back. Please.”

The gangway is raised and lowered many more times, over many years. Sometimes it stays somewhere for a long time, such as in the animal world, where the crew are welcomed with open arms. 

Other times, they have to make a hasty retreat from far less friendly hosts. 

And, of course, the quickest retreat is from the hunger.

Their closest call to date happens in cycle twelve, as Merle Highchurch’s stout legs barely carry him to the gangway in time. He has just started to climb the steps when a jab from the hunger rocks the ship. There’s a yell from the helm, and Davenport takes off, withdrawing the gangplank as he goes.

“Aw hell,” yelps Merle, swinging out against the railings with every pitch of the ship. He tumbles towards the edge, ready to just meet everyone in the next cycle, when a pair of hands catches his own. He gasps, legs dangling over the edge, and looks up to see Lucretia, teeth gritted and loose hair whipping at her face.

“What are you doing?” shouts Merle, over the drone of the ship and the howls of the wind. “Let me go!”

“I can’t,” says Lucretia, barely audible over the noise.

“What are you saying? I’ll be put back together in no time! Go inside!”

The ship pitches to the left, and Merle hits the railing, hard. He curses loudly, but doesn’t miss Lucretia’s reply, louder now.

“I won’t.”

He pauses, staring up at her. He can’t even remember the last time he saw her like this. No books, no writing, just doing some crazy shit like the rest of the crew. It’s so unlike her that he laughs, once, sharply, and his face settles into a smile.

“You’re insane,” he says, through more laughter.

She smiles, and starts to pull at his arms.

“Owowow, watch the shoulders…”

The bond engine spins faster, and the ship soars away from the storm.

And through forty three more cycles, no one is left at the gangway.

“Just come on up, little dude. We’re all friends here.”

The figure makes a hideous squelching sound as he looks up at Taako. He would look sad, maybe, if his entire face wasn’t made of featureless red jello. 

“I don’t think I’m getting what you’re… oooohhh…” 

Taako eyes the figure, folding his arms.

“No knees, huh?”

The jello guy shakes his head sadly.

“Can’t climb stairs. No, I get it. Happens to the best of us.”

The jello guy straightens up, swaying in place with more squelching noises.

“To be honest I’m not sure where this leaves us.”

The jello guy starts bouncing excitedly, losing bits of jello to the grass around him as he approaches Taako. This exact thing had ooked out the rest of the crew, almost completely. Taako has learned the fine art of jello body language, though. He is a good man, and he is here to listen.

“You want me to eat you, is that right?”

The jello nods vigorously, bouncing faster.

“Well, I’ll do it for you, partner!”

He pulls out the spoon that has been his constant companion throughout this delicious world. A small voice in the back of his mind says some vague thing about vore. The voice sounds like Lup. He chooses to ignore it.

Taako has always had this sort of connection to his sister. She’s as much a part of him as his own limbs, or brain, or award-winning smile (seriously. Don’t get him started on the world where they gave his smile an award). Over time, though, more people creep up on him like this. He hears Magnus telling him to get up and go outside, and Merle laughing at the dumb jokes he comes up with, and everyone reacting to his every move.

All of them become connected, the bonds tying them together forging into steel, into diamond, into star stuff. For any one of them to turn their back on another is to deny an integral part of themselves.

So when Lup steps onto the gangway after one hundred years of travelling, she doesn’t intend to leave them all behind. She’s going to get the gauntlet, get it somewhere no one will find it, and then get the fuck back home. It’s the first step in cleaning up this giant, ugly mess that they’ve made. It’s a step she needs to take.

She pauses for a moment, fingers playing with a crease in her red robe. It’s Barry’s fault, the doofus. He folds all of their clothes and puts them in drawers, instead of hanging robes and long things in the closet like a normal fucking person. She bites back a smile, holding the fabric for one more beat before letting go. 

She’ll be back before he even starts to miss her. Back in time to cook dinner with her brother and fill her family in on her actions over a meal. Maybe some of them will be mad at her, for going off to do this on her own. She can’t find it in herself to care, at the moment.

She has no way of knowing, as she steps off of the ship, that everything is about to change. That the umbra staff she clutches to her side contains a fatal flaw that will undo her. And as she walks away from the Starblaster, steps stretching into miles and “soon” stretching into twelve years of heartache, the ship mourns for her. For all of them, and what is to come.

And then, the victory. 

Twelve years later, a light breaks through the darkness. With blood, sweat, and tears, with magic and mayhem, with everything they have, the world fights back against a force that was destined to destroy them. 

And this time, the world wins.

Now, in the dust that has settled from this conflict, in the remains of over a year of rebuilding, the same seven pairs of feet climb the gangway once more. 

Their steps are heavy, but not in the usual way. Where they had once been weighed down by pain and sorrow, hopelessness and despair, they now hold confidence, wholeness, and light. Davenport climbs aboard first, waving back to his crew, beckoning them forward in excitement for their short reunion journey.

Taako follows, pouting at the early hour and leaning against his boyfriend like he can’t even stand to walk on his own. Kravitz laughs, taking careful steps up the stairs.

Lup follows, reaching a hand forward to press a steaming coffee into Taako’s hand. He accepts it without a word. Her other hand holds tight to Barry’s, pulling him along as his eyes wistfully scan the ship. Lup smirks at him, then stops walking and quickly fixes his inside-out hood. She hustles back up, laughing.

A pair of rambunctious dogs follow her, thinking the running means it’s time to play. Magnus pulls them back with a tug of the leash, and they fall into line. He puffs out his chest with pride.

Mookie takes off running as soon as he sees the dogs start. Merle shoots an arm forward, trying to catch his son’s sleeve, but Mookie is much harder to reign in. Mavis sighs, dragging a suitcase up behind them. 

Lucretia is the last of the original crew to follow, chatting with Carey, Killian, Ren, and Angus, who are all enchanted by the Starblaster. She relates a few quick stories, grinning as they gasp and laugh in all of the right places.

Her hand brushes against a notebook in her pocket, and she ignores it for now, along with all of the feelings that come up with it. 

At the moment, she is content to tell old stories. Gods know, she has enough of them to last.


	2. The Bridge

Six information packets are passed around the table. Slender fingers tap at the edges, a nervous pair of hands flip through, eyes scan the pictures and diagrams, someone whispers to their neighbour.

 

“This is, uh, well, there’s a lot of information for you in here. We’ll get to all of it soon. For now, though, I want to show you the ship. It’s on page… what page is it…?”

 

Davenport reaches over to Magnus’ untouched information packet, leaning off the edge of his chair as he flips through. Bold and italics and logos and signatures. Dotted lines and question marks. Dreams, translated to paper and ink.

 

Finally, he sees it. The layout of the ship that he’s been thinking about for years now, imprinted in the back of his eyelids with every blink and sigh and quick, exhausted sleep.

 

“Yeah, right here. Page… there you go.”

 

Everyone gets to the right page eventually, scanning the Starblaster’s blueprints with mixed reactions. Indifference. Excitement. Confusion.

 

“So let’s start from the top, here,” Davenport points. “There’s the bond engine, you’ve all heard enough about that by now.”

 

Merle snorts. This technology is pretty much all the IPRE has been talking about for months now. Davenport continues, unabashed.

 

“And, um, well, from the top down we have this deck, here. It’s enchanted to keep the elements out and the atmosphere safe for us, no matter what the outside conditions are. And then in the centre, there, that’s the bridge. We control the ship from the cockpit in there…”

 

“Hee hee hee!”

 

Magnus distinctly pronounces each part of his giggle. Later, this will become a signature Magnus trait. For now, it almost seems as if he’s mocking Davenport.

 

Davenport blinks, looking up at him, finger curling from where it was pointing at the cockpit.

 

“Wh…what are you…? Oh. Oh I get it.”

 

There’s a short silence. Magnus breaks eye contact first, looking back down at the blueprints.

 

Davenport makes a mental note to reimagine his interview process before the next voyage.

 

When Davenport first enters the bridge with his crew, ready to begin the journey he’s been working towards for his entire life, it is the single greatest thing he’s ever felt. Every muscle twitches with anticipation, fingers hovering over buttons, eyes flitting from lever to dial to screen, checking all of the necessary steps, knowing that everything is already perfectly in order, of course it is. His captain’s chair is positioned exactly right for his height and reach, and when he takes his place at the helm, his heart thunders as every cell in his body floods with emotion. He has practiced for this. He has done flights like this a million and one times. But this time, it’s different.

 

This time, it’s his.

 

And then, as the sky grows dark and space twists unnaturally and everything he knows and loves is ripped from him in a matter of a few, cruel minutes, it is only his muscle memory that pulls him through. His will collapses, his heart shatters, and he flies on through the despair.

 

His crew crowds around him, watching in horror. He clings to them, desperately, in his mind. These people that were meant to be friendly coworkers, now inextricably linked together through the agony of survival.

 

And survive they do.

 

It doesn’t take long for them to realize that, for them, death has somehow become more of a suggestion than a reality. No matter what happens to them in their year of exploration, they are always remade, knit back together in the Starblaster’s bridge. Magnus’ eye freshly bruised, Taako and Lup huddled to the side, Lucretia’s journals lying inches away, dropped at some point in terror, collected with weary fingers.

 

The crew huddles around the windows, excited and indifferent and confused as a yet unseen world sprawls beneath them. They start discussing tactics. They start taking bets. They start to enjoy the ride.

 

“Not that I’m not enjoying the ride, here, Cap’n, but we’re in like seven hundredth place.”

 

Davenport grits his teeth, not even dignifying Lup with an answer as he leans into the steering mechanism. They need more _speed._

He hears Lup’s foot tapping an impatient beat into the bridge’s wooden floors; distant over the sounds of the race, but loud enough to set Davenport on edge. She hovers nearby, with her palm flat on the door out to the deck, ready to jump out and attack an enemy that they haven’t seen in far too long.

 

“I’m doing my best here, okay? Focus on your job.”

 

Davenport catches a mock-salute out of the corner of his eye. Smartass.

 

When his crew had discovered that, in this world, the light of creation was set to be won as a trophy for an air ship race, they’d immediately put all of their faith in Davenport. Each team of two was to race a predetermined path through the air, taking out competitors with speed or with offensive magic. At the mention of magic meant for destruction, Lup was also a clear shoe-in. And that’s how Davenport ends up on this two-person team, in this crazy place, doing his best to hug the glowing corners and cut off competitors and IGNORE THAT GODSDAMN TAPPING SOUND, LUP.

 

He has to admit, the kid has talent. He’s spent almost four years with her, so he has definitely seen some of what she can do. It still takes him by surprise, though, whenever she effortlessly knocks armoured ships out of the air with a single, lazy cantrip. She’s taken out at least ten other racers so far without so much as a spell slot. Davenport shudders and thanks the gods that she’s on his side.

 

“Hey, Davenport?”

 

“Yes?”

 

He angles his head towards her, but still doesn’t take his eyes off the grey skies.

 

“I just wanted to say that you’re a baller captain, and it’s been real cool spending time with you.”

 

The wind roars outside the ship. Davenport turns back to the window.

 

“The bond engine doesn’t work like that, Lup.”

 

She lets out an airy laugh.

 

“Well, it was worth a shot.”

 

Tapping again. Davenport is pushed further.

 

“This is all the speed we’re gonna get. We need… I don’t know. A miracle, I suppose?”

 

He hears her draw in a sharp breath.

 

“Hey, Cap’n’port? Do you still have those Goggles of Distance laying around here somewhere? The ones from those dudes with the fucked up grills in cycle 2?”

 

“Tusks were an evolutionary benefit for them,” says Davenport, quick to jump to the defense of the kind strangers. “You know how icy it was over there. Tusks are a beautiful adaptation for...”

 

“Hm, Yeah,” Lup interrupts. “Don’t get me wrong here, loving this word picture you’re painting me, but we’re kind of in the middle of a race so…”

 

Davenport spots another ship in the distance and his pulse picks up, hands white-knuckled on the steering.

 

“I… yes. I have them. Why?”

 

“Where are they?”

 

The ship in front of them turns sharply, spiralling downward towards the final leg.

 

“Third drawer. What are you planning?”

 

The goggles were designed by the people of the icy landscape to extend their magic’s range, so they could easily catch prey from afar, retrieve it, and get back to warmth without hassle.

 

He hears Lup rummaging around beside him, dread growing in his stomach.

 

“Aha!”

 

In one fluid motion, she snaps the goggles onto her eyes, waves her arms forward, and then slides them up onto her forehead.

 

There is a silence. No sign of any other racers.

 

“What did you… what did you just do?” asks Davenport, feeling like an overworked babysitter.

 

“Something pretty cool,” says Lup, leaning against the wall with her ankles interlocked. “You might want to keep at this altitude, just for the record.”

 

He sighs deeply. Not dropping down would use precious seconds of their time, but from what he’s seen of Lup’s abilities, he doesn’t want to tempt fate. In this moment, he chooses to put his trust in his crew.

 

 They fly for about a minute in eerie silence, and then…

 

“Lup, what the fuck is happening down there?”

 

Trails of black smoke rise towards them from below, fires flashing and ships crumpling in on themselves before falling from the sky, destroyed.

 

Lup grins, pressing up against the glass to watch what she’s done.

 

“Mmmmwall of force,” she says, pulling the goggles off of her head and cradling them gently.

 

“You… what?”

 

“Wall of force,” she repeats. “It’s an invisible wall that they’re crashing right on into. I made it real funky-shaped, so don’t worry about them figuring it out and dodging.”

 

Davenport takes a hand off of the steering for the first time in the race, scrubbing at his forehead.

 

“That… is definitely against the rules.”

 

Lup shrugs.

 

“Not our fault we decided to take a different path. We were way too far away to have been responsible for this, and they can’t prove otherwise.”

 

Davenport groans.

 

“Except for when they find the goggles, and they can prove otherwise.”

 

He begins to feel heat radiating from his right, and turns his head sharply.

 

“Oh!” says Lup. “Oh no! I got some fire on them! What a crazy accident.”

 

Where Lup had once been clutching the goggles, she now holds a brilliant ball of fire, dancing between her fingers and licking at her wrist.

 

“What the f… those were a gift!” Davenport says, forcing himself to turn back and focus on steering, anger boiling in his veins.

 

“Yeah, I fucking hate it when my gifts burst into flames,” she says. “Sucks, my dude.”

 

Davenport spots the finish line in the distance, and he forgets the goggles for a moment, heart jolting into his throat.

 

“But I think our friendship is the true gift,” says Lup, throwing an arm around the back of his chair.

 

“Still not how it works,” Davenport mumbles.

 

She just laughs.

 

That laughter carries them onward. Years flicker by.

 

Seven acquaintances are knit into existence over and over. They look out of windows and suggest landing strategies. The ones who were lost earlier on are welcomed back with a smile and a high five.

 

Seven friends and knit into existence. They take a moment to collect themselves, gathering together, assessing. The ones who were lost are crowded around, welcomed back.

 

Seven family members are knit. They focus on one another, immediately clinging together, gathering around Davenport as they face their new world as a team. Arms are thrown around those who were lost, tears shed, excited stories break out, they are welcomed home with so, so much love.

 

Davenport, himself, is never lost. As the captain of the Starblaster, he makes it his solemn duty to remain close to the ship, ready to take off on a moment’s notice, never daring to take any chances that might leave his family stranded in a dying world.

 

In cycle forty-six, he’s given no choice.

 

Early on, Magnus brings home a wanted poster, spreading it out on the Starblaster’s controls as Davenport sits in his captain’s chair, enjoying a hot drink in the crisp morning chill. He spits out his sip as his own face sneers up at him. The reward is “3 000 000 dogs”, which he assumes is the currency in this world, and not the animal. Otherwise, he’s not certain that Magnus wouldn’t be turning him in right now.

 

As the crew explores the world further, they find their captain’s face from every angle, glaring at them from street corners and shop windows and fliers: “HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?”

 

It’s just Davenport’s luck that the top priority death row escapee in this tiny, mostly ocean-covered world is an exact likeness of himself, down to each careful curl in his moustache. After just a few weeks of trying to hide, he figures that it’s about time he teaches someone else to fly the Starblaster, just in case. And that’s how Barry finds himself at the helm of the ship, sweating buckets as Davenport explains the function of each and every button, dial, and lever.

 

“I know it sounds complicated, but it’s really not. You shouldn’t have to use most of these things, just focus on the altitude and the steering.”

 

Davenport had chosen Barry as his second in command at breakfast that morning, shocking just about everyone there. Barry supposes that, as the main scientist on board the ship, he has some of the closest ties to the actual IPRE organization. And also, everyone else is maybe too easily distracted. He’s quite possibly received this position by process of elimination.

 

“Right. Um, Cap’n? …Could we maybe adjust this chair a smidge?”

 

Barry tells himself that most of his anxiety is just due to the fact that he is being contorted into a tiny denim pretzel.

 

“Yeah, sure. That’s what this button’s for.”

 

Davenport snaps open a compartment on the wall, revealing about twenty more buttons that just make the knot in Barry’s stomach tighter. So many fucking buttons.

 

The rest of the crew has elected to stay behind, sharing drinks on a bench in the grassy park they’d docked in that morning. Taako had slipped on some sunglasses and wished him good luck, only seconds before Lup said she’d miss him, and she’d see him next cycle. Lucretia reminded him to take notes. He is not taking notes. Why didn’t he remember to take notes?

 

“Okay, well, are you ready to go?”

 

Barry rolls his shoulders. Cracks his neck.

 

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

 

He reaches forward, breathing shallowly as he eases the Starblaster into the air. It’s clumsy, and the movement spooks him, making him pause in his ascent to hover there, ship protesting.

 

“This is bad for the engine, Barry. You’ve gotta keep going,” Davenport says, reaching forward to flip a switch. Barry definitely does not remember what the switch does. The whirring noises in the engine ease up a bit, mysteriously.

 

He steels himself, moving forward again, adjusting the steering and ascending once more into the sky.

 

“There you go.”

 

When the park they started in has shrunk enough, blending seamlessly into the surrounding forest, Barry finds himself calming down a bit. Flying the Starblaster is very intuitive, and although he’s definitely no Davenport he could probably get the others out in a pinch.

 

Davenport instructs him through a few laps of the city, explaining how he’d have to fly if it was storming, if the ship was damaged, if the Hunger was nearby. The thought of that, of actually flying this thing away from the Hunger, sends Barry back into internal panic. Davenport steadies him through it all, giving pointers, taking control when he needs to, encouraging him. Barry allows himself to relax.

 

Growing up as he did, Barry’s father had been his hero. The man was loud, confident, and so full of love and life that the idea of him being gone leaves Barry’s mind spinning, dissonant and shaken. Barry had had a wonderful family back home. Supportive friends. Lived in a happy community. The funny thing about losing them all at once, about the pain that still scrapes against his heart after forty-six years, is that he’s never been able to fully separate one loss from another.

 

Thinking about his father makes him think about his mother, the two of them holding his tiny hands and swinging him through the air as they went on walks in his childhood. He’d think of his brothers, wrestling with him in the living room, and his younger sister, painting his nails because he was the only one who didn’t mind. He still keeps them painted, whenever he can. He pictures himself and his siblings on a hot summer day, suns beating down on their necks as they find bugs in the backyard and bring home handfuls of rocks and flowers to their parents, colouring their house with so much love. Each loss leads to another, a spiral of grief that consumes him, leaves him crumpled and sobbing and lonely in the darkest of times.

 

In those times, though, he’s learned to look to his new family. Where once he’d suffered in silence, he has now found the enormous courage that it takes to ask for help.

 

Lucretia sketches pictures of his loved ones, as he describes every detail he can remember. The exact shape of his mother’s smile. A freckle on his sister’s nose. How his brother’s glasses never sat exactly right on his face.

 

Magnus always ends up crying with him, swapping stories of his own friends and family. Dust, dust, dust.

 

Taako is rather gruff in his comfort, not sticking around for Barry’s crying, but coming back several times a minute with snacks and tea and blankets and tissues.

 

Merle always knows just what to say, somehow. Not offering solutions, not trying to make it better, but sharing in his pain until the weight eases up just enough for him to carry on.

 

And Lup. Well. Lup can always take the edge off his sadness, just by being Lup. A gentle hand on his shoulder and a reassuring whisper, the smell of her, like spices and something more floral, he needs her like he’s never needed anything else before, in these bad times and always.

 

Davenport, though, isn’t really good at these things. It isn’t that he didn’t sympathize, or doesn’t try to help. Their captain is just so awkward about these things, so full of his own hurt, that it’s hard to do anything except sit with him in mournful silence, each of them feeding off of each other’s pain as they spiral forever downward.

 

“Okay, go more downward. We’re hitting a tailwind here.”

 

Barry eases the Starblaster down, accidentally dropping too fast and sending Davenport sprawling against the wall.

 

“Ah, sorry about that, Cap’n’port.”

 

Davenport sighs, stepping back up and running a hand through his hair. Even without words, Barry knows he’s forgiven.

 

There is absolutely nothing about Davenport that should be reminding Barry of his father right now. The two are just about as different as two men can be. Yet, something about Davenport’s hand on the arm of Barry’s chair, steadying him, teaching him, doing this because he cares so much about his wellbeing, something about the way Davenport swells with pride as Barry levels the ship out at their new altitude, warms Barry’s heart in a place that has been cold for a very long time.

 

Nothing can ever replace the family that he’s lost. He keeps them safe in his heart, sealed with memories, and brings them out, tenderly, in the times they’re needed most. But through all of these years Barry has also learned that there is something beautiful in a found family. A family brought together by circumstance, bonds forged through hardship, through adventure, through joy. He has learned that family can be a circumstance, an emotion, a place.

 

He pilots the Starblaster carefully and precisely, a calmness washing over him at the helm of his world.

 

With both Davenport and Barry knowing the specifics of piloting the ship, and Lup knowing just enough to get them by if they were really desperate (it’s almost scary how quickly she picks up on things just by observing them), the crew isn’t too worried about being able to escape from the Hunger whenever they need to. Every year they escape, drawing on each other’s strengths and pulling through to new horizons.

 

One year, though, this precious safety, this foundation of trust and support, crumbles to dust within seconds.

 

Lucretia falls to dust as soon as her crewmates do, her still-beating heart pumping shards of glass and stone through every vein, every muscle, her lungs choking on the heaviness of it all, her hands working by themselves, writing frantic messages in her journals that scare even her to read.

 

“Lucretia, you’ve got to sleep,” says Davenport, gazing at her from across the room, voice dripping with kindness and concern.

 

“I can’t rest until I find somewhere away from the judges,” says Lucretia, eyes painful with lack of sleep, hands trembling at the helm.

 

“You’re going to crash,” he says, sterner now. You can’t hide from them with a ruined ship.

 

Lucretia laughs, high and cold, and it lasts for much longer than it should. She doesn’t answer him. She’s already done exactly that. She’s hidden the Starblaster away, in ruins, repaired it as best she could, forced its shambling corpse onward, begging it to hold on for just as long as it needs to.

 

“They’re facing the cardinal directions today,” she says, simply. “If I can fly far enough northeast, I can get out of their view. Then I’ll sleep. If it’s safe.”

 

Davenport sighs, and Lucretia sighs. Shakes. Carries onward.

 

Something splashes against her arm, and she realizes, dully, that she’s crying. It’s odd, really. She doesn’t think she’s cried at all since she started this journey, since setting off alone into this cruel and unforgiving world.

 

Maybe it’s finally getting to her, the responsibility that lies on her shoulders. She clutches six lives so desperately in her hands, physically and painfully aching for them. Maybe it’s Davenport’s words that finally get through to her. Maybe it’s his kindness, his need to care for her.

 

Maybe it’s the fact that he’s dead, crumbled into dust and carried away by the wind. The fact that he speaks to her now from a single place on the wall of the bridge, made of only paint and brushstrokes and time and memory. The fact that every room in the Starblaster houses the same painted people; a laughing Merle at the card table, an engrossed Barry in the lab, a sleepy Magnus on the couch, a Taako and a Lup chopping and stirring in the kitchen with smiles on their faces. She speaks to them, hears them speak to her, as if she hadn’t just created them herself. As if her sanity isn’t slipping away as the days wear into weeks and the weeks wear into months and finally, finally, she lets herself believe that the end is near. That she is going to make it.

 

And she does. She fucking _makes it._

 

In the week that follows, everyone takes turns comforting her. They pull mattresses off of beds and sleep in a giant mess on the floor of the bridge, Magnus and Barry accidentally turning to hug her in their sleep, the twins bringing her breakfast in bed, and Merle snoring as Davenport complains about it. She loves his snoring. It means he’s alive. They’re all alive, and they _made it._

 

Not that they’ll stay that way for long. They continue to die, and be reborn, never taking each other for granted, bonds stretching across time and space and death to hold them to each other, always.

 

Davenport is stitched back to life in cycle eighty-eight, after having been dead for the last three months of eighty-seven. To him, it feels like no time has passed at all. He met a creature he’d never seen before, the creature had teeth bigger than Daveport’s entire body, and the pain hadn’t even lasted long enough for him to fully realize he was dying.

 

To the rest of the crew, though, this is a grand reunion. Magnus pulls him into a crushing hug, then sets him down to be slapped on the back by Merle. Davenport sprawls forward into Taako, who steadies him, welcoming him back with a “you know, it gets real _Lord of the Flies_ around here real fast when you gack it, my man.” Lup retorts with something about a pig head on a stick, and Lucretia makes a comment about an offering that sends the twins into obnoxiously loud laughter. Davenport doesn’t fully understand what’s happening at this point.

 

He climbs into the Captain’s chair, Barry briefing him quickly on how the Starblaster held up in the three months he was gone. Everything seems fine. His ship and his crew are fine. A tightness that he didn’t know he was holding uncoils in his chest. He worries about them, when they’re on their own like that.

 

They crowd around him, talking over each other and laughing and trying to get whatever pieces of him they can, after months apart. He can’t remember the last time he felt so loved. He can’t remember the last time he loved so much.

 

Eventually, they stop running. The Starblaster makes one final, brave assault on the Hunger, and they defeat it with everything they have. It doesn’t feel real, at first. They are a family of fugitives that have never allowed themselves to plant roots, never allowed themselves to fully feel safe anywhere except within the Starblaster’s walls. Even as they work through it, and take this world by storm, the ship still feels like their truest home.

 

Davenport makes wide circles through the air above Neverwinter, going in for his tenth lap of the city.

 

“I am begging you all to please just pick somewhere for us to go,” he says, unable to bring himself to be too annoyed. It’s been so quiet around here, without them. New voices join in, yelling instructions for him to travel in a million different directions, all different adventures that they can have, together.

 

“I’m telling you, Turmish is fucking unbelievable! Babe, tell them…”

 

“Yeah, it’s pretty great…”

 

“Do I look like a tourist to you? I can see a beach any day, I want to go somewhere greener!”

 

“I want ice cream, pap!”

 

“Maybe we could… land? To have this discussion? I’m feeling rather ill…”

 

“Hey, everybody shut the fuck up. You’re making him ill.”

 

“Um, sirs, ma’ams, if I may… I think anywhere will be fun as long as we’re together as friends!”

 

“Some places suck though, Ango.”

 

The squabbling continues, and Davenport pulls the ship higher, fighting back a giant goofy grin. He doesn’t know what he expected, inviting them all here. He knows these six people better than he knows any lessons, any formulas, anything. And the newest members of their crew fit in pretty damn well, too.

 

He goes in for one more lap, bursting with happiness at having his family back on board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Open letter to my past self:  
> Dear me,  
> Hey, thanks a whole lot for making this fic in present tense for some reason. You know how much I love present tense. Even more than that, I love going back for a thousand words and changing every suffix from past to present because I messed up. It's cool. Real cool.  
> your friend,  
> me
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this Official Davenport Chapter (tm). Davenport is the most mysterious member of IPRE, to me, so I love getting inside his head. Finally, thanks so much for the kudos and comments!!!


	3. The Deck

The main IPRE building is a place of numbers. Engineers and scientists work tirelessly every day, counting and calculating precisely what is needed to send a team of explorers out into the stars. They add and subtract and measure, bent low over huge pieces of graph paper, mumbling to themselves in every room of the institution.

 

It’s not that Lup can’t do the math –she’s actually pretty cool with numbers— it’s that she won’t let herself do something so damn boring. Lup has a healthy relationship with numbers. She can basically ace any math exam without studying; a trait that she shares with her brother, and a trait that has infuriated basically everyone around them since math became a thing.

 

She’s pretty awesome at guessing measurements. She can dump an exact amount of ingredients into a bowl without touching a single measuring spoon, and whip up something pretty fucking incredible within seconds. She knows every hallway of the IPRE like the back of her own hand, and can calculate the fastest way to get herself down to wherever they need her in the least amount of time possible. Which is good, because lately, they’ve been calling on her and Taako more and more, way too fucking early in the morning, and it’s seriously cutting into that good good rest time.

 

The two of them had had their interview for the IPRE exploration team about a week ago, but she already knows they got it. They’re perfect for this mish. The most beautiful balance of talent and style. They bring a million skills to the table, including but not limited to conjuring elements, transforming shit, cooking killer food, boosting morale, and fushigi art. The fushigi was what sealed the deal, probably. She’s always told Taako that fushigi investment was worth it.

 

Today, she has a random moment of time off between meetings and tests. She snags Taako out of some conversation with an old colleague, and marches off towards the centre of the building.

 

“Hey, you’d better not be taking me to the chemistry labs right now,” Taako says. “Just a heads up. That ship done sailed.”

 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she says, waving a hand in the general direction of her brother behind her. Their last trip to the chemistry labs had somehow ended in Taako creating gold out of lead, and the instructor lecturing him about the economy while he calmly explained that he was just very impressive, really, was the thing. Either way, lifetime ban for Taako. And Lup didn’t go anywhere Taako couldn’t.

 

“So…” Taako clicks his tongue, letting the unasked question hang in the air.

 

“We’re almost there, goobus. Calm your shit.”

 

She turns one last corner, boots clicking on perfectly polished tile. Around the corner is the central core of the building, an enormous, circular window reaching up four floors and around the ship dock. She walks up to the window, crossing her arms with a small smile.

 

“Thought I’d introduce you to the Starblaster.”

 

Taako catches up to her, glancing down at the half-built ship with a practiced, calm expression. Lup isn’t fooled in any way. Dude’s excited off his brains.

 

The ship has yet to be painted, and there are definitely some parts missing, but from what she can see it’s gonna be tight. People have been working on this thing since she got to the institute, and it’s come a long long way. She’s not sure how Taako has managed to avoid seeing it up until now.

 

“Starblaster, huh? That’s a pretty cool name.”

 

Lup nods. It is a very cool name.

 

They spend a few minutes staring, daydreaming about what’s next for them. Adventure and fame. Recognition and discovery.

 

A small team of people work on the ship below them, standing on the deck of the ship, waving wands, jotting down notes, discussing.

 

“Some kind of repelling spell,” Taako notes, glancing at Lup. “For space, I guess? Aliens?”

 

Lup hums a short note, watching as the next round of spells begin, a red barrier flashing and fading around the deck.

 

“Nope, sorry bro. That’s nerd repellant. Guess you can’t come along, after all.”

 

Taako snorts, and shifts to bump into her roughly. She moves her foot just enough to catch herself.

 

It took a team of only four people to enchant the deck of the Starblaster. Some of IPRE’s top magic users worked on it, carefully placing up every protection to keep their team of adventurers safe against the elements, the vacuum of space, and anything else that may try to harm them from the outside. They assured themselves that, as long as the enchantments remained, no harm could come to the team.

 

The enchantments remained. The harm came anyway.

 

Each of the seven members of the Starblaster crew die multiple times on their hundred year journey. Planes are torn by war, or full of unfamiliar hazards, or home to fearful residents turned violent. Even barring all of this, nothing could have ever fully prepared the little ship for the might of the Hunger. No one ever suffocates on the deck of the ship, to be fair.

 

The deck becomes a prime hangout spot for the crew. Each tour of their new worlds bring Magnus and Lucretia to the deck, wind in their hair as Magnus shouts out cool things he sees below and Lucretia takes lightning fast notes. Merle and Davenport like to sit up there on the quieter days, sipping margaritas and chatting. Taako and Lup have been known to pose at the farthest end of the deck, one with arms outstretched and one with them curled around the other, like the couple in fantasy Titanic, just for the hell of it. Barry is happy being the quiet observer, adding a low laugh to complete any scene.

 

Whenever they invite others on to see the ship, the deck is where they bring them last. An elegant finish with a view of the whole world sprawling beneath them. A flourish, a gesture, often a round of applause. Many new friends are made this way.

 

Many new friends are lost, along the way.

 

Cycle four is the first cycle they find to be wholly uninhabited. As the Starblaster skims across the surface of the hollow world, kicking up dust and debris, there is none of the usual fanfare and excitement. A dread settles over the crew. Something is horribly wrong.

 

A few weeks into the cycle, they come across a city. Or, what had certainly once been a city. Buildings stand hunched, tired and defeated as they crumble at the edges. Roads wind, cracked and faded, through the city, disappearing under piles of rubble. Vines have devoured the scene, the only place they’ve found to survive in the harsh desert landscape.

 

“What… happened?” asks Magnus, in barely a whisper.

 

No one answers. No one says anything, until the city is far, far behind them.

 

After several months, they find life.

 

“Hey, Capnport!” Magnus bellows, running inside from the deck, arms flailing. “Stop! There are people down there!”

 

Davenport squeaks and twists the wheel.

 

They pick up three passengers, a young father and his two children, a girl with bright eyes and a penchant for mischief, a boy with freckles across his nose who can’t quite speak, yet.  

 

The father, wrinkled and grey far beyond his years, explains that everything has been lost. Greed and destruction have devastated their world, and, from what he can tell, they are the only three left. They will be the last. He sees the Starblaster as a gift from the gods, says he has been praying for them, every day.

 

“If we’re the best your god can do, you might want to pick a different god,” Merle laughs, clapping a hand on the man’s knee. The man is tall, and his shoulder is far away.

 

“He works in mysterious ways,” says the man, smiling softly. He watches his children as they play, wrestling and laughing on the deck of the Starblaster.

 

“Don’t I know it,” says Merle, grinning at the kids.

 

Merle is weirdly good with kids. They wear him out fast, sure, but they like him. He can make them laugh, and distract them when their dad needs some time. He teaches them how to grow a little vegetable garden, even in the desert (it’s all in the fertilizer), how to read simple books (not that they have many on board), and how to live like _kids_ for Pan’s sake.

 

Someday, they’ll realize the weight of being alone. Someday, they might feel the same burden that their father struggles with every day, emptiness behind his eyes as he watches his kids.

 

Every night, as he yells himself awake, Merle is there with a warm cloth to dab at his sweaty forehead, to wipe away the tears that no one else can see.

 

After ten months, there’s still no sign of the light of creation. The crew is getting nervous. They’ve all grown to love the little family, who fit so perfectly into their day-to-day. The twins cook them their favourite foods, Davenport teaches them all of the card games he knows, Magnus chases the kids all over the ship, knocking over the paintings that Lucretia has set to dry, bright colours, happy children. Barry studies the landscape with the father, trying to figure out exactly what went wrong here. Trying to save future worlds from the same fate.

 

At the end of the year, the family stands on the deck, and Merle stands with them, fear crackling through him as the Hunger converges from around them, stretches towards them, threatens to destroy everything they have. The Hunger is still fairly new to the crew, at this point. They still think there must be some way to defeat it. Lucretia, Taako, Lup, and Barry fire spells from below, each attempt deflecting harmlessly off of their foe. Merle can’t believe just how _loud_ this thing is, a sound unlike anything he’s ever heard just _roaring_ all around him.

 

The boy covers his ears, face pressed into his father’s legs. The girl cries, clinging to her father’s arm. The father just looks on, face unreadable. How can you even react to something like this, when you’ve already seen hell?

 

The fear inside Merle transforms, and he prays harder than he has ever prayed before, for the crew’s safety and the safety of this family. They deserve to get away from here, and into a better world. They deserve so much better than what they’ve been given. Merle loves these three like his very own family, and he can’t let his family go. Not again.

 

As Davenport breaks free, and they escape once more, Merle feels himself unraveling, being torn apart into a now familiar clump of memories and threads and time. He comes back together all at once, the Starblaster pitching to the right, knocking him into Barry, who steadies him carefully. As soon as his legs are back underneath him, Merle rushes out of the bridge and onto the deck, praying, praying, praying.

 

And… nothing. The family is nowhere to be seen. Dread hits him like a physical punch.

 

“Aw… sshhhit,” he hisses, whirling around, resigned to scour the ship for any sign of them.

 

They all look, but their search turns up nothing. Some things are left behind, small reminders of the people that they loved, the lives that the hunger took from them, again. Lucretia rolls up the paintings. Their eighth, ninth, and tenth dinner plates remain in the cupboard. Soil samples are stored. Life goes on.

 

It takes Merle quite a while to heal from that one.

 

But time, the cruelest of matrons, does heal. Sometimes the healing is scarred, leaving an imperfection that is as permanent as it is painful. A broken bone, set at an angle. A scar that still hurts when you press on it. Wounds are adaptable as people are.

 

The Starblaster crew never acquire any physical scars. Any damage that they take throughout their journey is always healed at the beginning of the next cycle. But the injuries on their hearts and minds remain, painful lessons that they gather together, juggle amongst themselves, and learn to share. Their hardships become a sort of bitter strength that binds them together through it all. As they grow as people, they grow together. As the scars grow on their hearts, the words do as well.

 

The first time the words escape, it is cycle ten.

 

Magnus is splayed out on the deck, flipping through a book without really reading it. This cycle has been fairly straightforward. The people are kind. The laws are fair. The single sun burns hot on a sweaty summer day.

 

Magnus has been all about this lemonade the twins made earlier in the day. The remains of his fifth glass sit beside him, ice shiny and round as it melts away to nothing. Getting up to put it away is, honestly, a whole lot of work.

 

Magnus has only just laid his face down in the book, ready to nap his heatstroke away, when he hears a clinking sound next to him. He rolls his head towards the sound.

 

“You okay there, bud?”

 

It’s Barry. And he’s holding Magnus’ cup. He’s come to take Magnus’ cup away like some kind of... cup… angel.

 

“We were planning on collecting his corpse a few days from now,” calls Merle, from where he’s sunbathing in the distance. “He’s quieter this way.”

 

Barry gives a nervous grin, like he’s not sure whether to laugh at that or not.

 

“Barry,” says Magnus, in the most raspy and pathetic voice he can muster. “Barry, come closer, Barry.”

 

Barry leans down towards Magnus.

 

“Barry.”

 

“That’s me.”

 

“I’m dying, Barry.”

 

Barry nods, and straightens up.

 

“Well that sucks. See you in a few months I guess.”

 

Magnus gives a single, solemn nod, then presses his face back into the book. Breathes in the musty smell of hot, hot paper.

 

“As a last request I’ll make sure this cup gets to the kitchen,” says Barry. The clink of ice again. It’s maybe the nicest thing anyone has ever done for Magnus.

 

“I love you Barry,” says Magnus, closing his eyes and succumbing to the pull from the great beyond.

 

Barry chuckles in response.

 

“I love you too, Barry!” yells Merle. “Will you bring me some more lotion for my back?”

 

Barry sighs in response.

 

From this moment on, the casual ‘I love you’ gets thrown around like nobody’s business.

 

Magnus is, of course, the most liberal user. He’s not afraid to let everyone know exactly how he feels, dammit. Tied for second place are Merle, who uses the words mostly to get what he wants, and Lup, who uses them mostly to soften the blow of a very deadly burn. The others are much harder to weasel it out of, usually just saying it jokingly, or in response to Magnus, or when something very, very good happens.

 

The point is, they all mean it when they say it.

 

The only people that never seem to say it to each other are Lup and Barry. 'Thank you's get thrown around a lot. Compliments on each other’s genius, or talent, or the clothes they’d chosen that day. There’s even a time when Lup wears a shirt that’s so brightly orange, and complements her sunny energy for the day so well, that Barry heaves out a ‘hey, if that shirt was a fruit, I’d save it for last and then eat it slowly so it tasted the best” (“what the fuck, Barry?”).

 

Barry knows the reason for his hesitation to say these words to Lup. In a way it’s sort of like the reason he refuses to wear any pants other than jeans. The way he speaks to her now is easy, it’s comfortable, and there’s just no reason to change what has always worked for him. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, as mama Bluejeans always used to say.

 

Barry has pulled a chair out onto the deck of the Starblaster, and he sits in it now, watching people mill about below him as his fingers tap piano notes into his legs. It is cycle forty-seven, and the Starblaster has been parked in one of the grand courtyards of the Legato Conservatory for months now.

 

His work at the Conservatory has been surprisingly rewarding. The piano has been his entire life since basically the minute they landed here, when a stern-looking instructor had claimed him as his own. Barry didn’t mind, he’d always kind of wanted to learn how to play, and it’s been an admittedly welcome break from the usual facts and figures. Music is a different kind of science. A sort of science of the heart.

 

The Conservatory is definitely one of his favourite places of all of the places they’ve lived. The community is tight-knit, yet welcoming to outsiders. He’s never been wished a good morning by quite so many strangers. Everywhere he goes, there is the distant thrum of music. He usually lets himself get carried away on it, focusing on the cadence and the expression as he learns about people from the way they choose to play.

 

Today, though, he needs to get away from that. Really focus on his own sound, without any outside influences. In front of him, the sheet music for _Salut D’amour_ is splayed out, held down by rocks as the wind plucks at the edges. His instructor had given him the finalized version this morning. It was pretty complicated, but Lup had winked as they’d discussed it, saying they’d probably be able to wing it when they screwed it up.

 

And, fuck, there he goes again. Even when he purposely hides himself, far away from where Lup can find him and insist on duet practice, she won’t stop _distracting_ him.

 

He’s been working with her for decades, now. He’s been in love with her for longer.

 

So many lazy afternoons have been spent this cycle with just the two of them, messing around on piano and violin, going completely off book to complement each other's sound. They’d laugh when a string screeched or a key jammed, and then pick it back up like nothing had happened. Hours and hours of talking without words.

 

Barry always did his best not to stare at her while she played, but he couldn't help thinking that maybe this was the most beautiful he’d ever seen her. Arms in perfect form, head tilted, eyes closed gently as the sound swelled. Somehow Barry's fingers, always kind of chubby and uncoordinated, had become really good at moving on their own, doing their thing even as he looked away, adding to her song. It always sounded pretty alright, he thought.

 

After practice, they’d usually go for drinks or wander the town. A few times, as they wandered, their hands had ended up together, Barry’s chubby fingers lacing through her long, thin ones, his brain short circuiting and his feet sort of stumbling along. He felt his hands burning with the thought of it, now, as he faked his way through a lone duet on the deck of the ship.

 

When he closes his eyes, he sees her, smiling and laughing and scrunching her nose up before telling a casual joke. Eyes sparkling in the night, locking on his own as they walked blindly through this new world.

 

The next time they meet up on the deck, their song has been given to the world, ringing through his veins as he holds her - he’s allowed to _hold_ her - as they laugh and talk and hum lazy duets. He says he loves her, now, after a lifetime of holding the words in his heart, and she says them too, over and over and over again. Not even The Hunger can really spoil his good mood, which is maybe not great, what with the destruction of a world and all that. Forty more worlds dance by.

 

Cycle eighty-seven is a world populated entirely by some peaceful little animals. They’re rabbit-like, almost, fluffy and harmless, completely unafraid of the IPRE crew as they step outside. The world is gorgeous, all greenery and sky, untouched by people or predators. They find the light in a pool of the bluest spring water they’ve ever seen. At night, more stars than imaginable stretch through the skies.

 

Magnus finds some fold-out reclining chairs in storage, and lugs them out onto the deck for the crew to crash on. They sprawl out under the night sky, IPRE sweaters wrapped around them, breath foggy in the night sky.

 

Davenport lies on the edge, whispering rapid-fire space facts to Barry, who absorbs it all like a sponge. They discuss chemical compositions and relative distances in hushed tones, eyes darting across the heavens. Taako groans, shoving a spare cushion between himself and Barry, blocking off his sight of him. Taako pulls his robe up to his chin, using it like a blanket.

 

“Yeah, anyway, I’m declaring this my No Nerd Zone. I’m gonna appreciate the hell out of some nature, and no one is allowed to ruin that.”

 

Barry laughs, thumping the cushion with the back of his fist. Davenport is completely unfazed, and the two continue their conversation.

 

“Look, Magnus,” says Lup, pointing vaguely at the sky. “This one looks like a dick.”

 

Magnus laughs.

 

“It’s weird that every constellation here is a dick.”

 

“Yeah, I thought so too. Look! Another one.”

 

Magnus extends his hands out, knocking her arm off course.

 

“I think I see something! It’s… freckles! Some bees!”

 

“Good call, there, my man,” she says, grinning and folding her hands over her stomach. “I see it too.”

 

“I’m telling you, you’re doing this wrong,” says Merle, finger swiping random patterns in the sky. “This one’s the Urse Majorca. And the one that looks like a spoon points north. That’s it there.”

 

Taako sighs, pulling a cushion between himself and Merle. Constellation knowledge very wrong. Still a nerd for trying.

 

“Hey, why am I being blocked off?” asks Merle, kicking his legs against the chair.

 

“Mmm, sorry. Can’t hear you through the No Nerd Wall,” says Taako, stretching his arms above his head.

 

Merle rolls over and pushes hard against the wall. The cushion slips a bit at the bottom, and collapses onto him. He flails around until it’s pushed into Taako’s lap.

 

Taako lifts it up, shaking his head slowly.

 

“Yeah that’s a violation of the No Nerd law. You’re in some serious debt, now, my dude.”

 

Merle laughs, loud and rich.

 

“Damn, I got nothing. Do you take rugles?”

 

“That was like thirty cycles ago. No. ‘Course not. Pay up.”

 

Merle sighs, rolling back over to face Taako. He puts his head in his hand and drops his eyelids slightly.

 

“I guess I’ll have to pay with my body.”

 

Taako jerks away, pressing himself against the other cushion, which falls over onto Barry. He snags his pointed hat from the ground, jamming it over his face.

 

“Nope. I’m dying. This conversation is done. Taako out.”

 

Merle bursts into raucous laughter, clutching his stomach and kicking at the chair. He rocks back and forth as he laughs, nearly pushing Lucretia out of her seat and onto the ground. Barry moves the other cushion back onto the ground, and Merle wipes away a tear. Merle has one of those laughs that spread, and soon they’re all laughing, barring Taako, though none as loudly as Merle.

 

Lucretia can barely see now, eyes thick with tears of laughter. She rubs at her eyes, sitting up slightly, and tries to memorize this moment. Her family, so happy and together, in a rare moment of relief from the burdens of the crazy life they live together. She focuses on the colours, the dimmed faces of her friends, in sharp shadows from the moon and the stars. She observes the different shades of blue that paint the sky, which isn’t just blackness at all, not if you pay attention. The red of their matching sweaters. Teeth flashing white in laughter. The blue of Barry’s favourite jeans, the yellow of Magnus’ freshly painted nails, The grey of undue stress peppering Davenport’s mustache. She loves them all so, so much.

 

She knows that she would do anything for these people.  

 

They move forward, through time and space. They make a terrible mistake.

 

She doesn’t know what to do, anymore. She sits alone on the deck, searching for something in the stars. She doesn’t know how she can help them.

 

When the idea comes to her, it tears her apart. She paints a night sky, hands trembling as she fills in the scene with blackness.

 

Barry stands on the deck, knees buckling, head pounding, heart breaking to pieces, every nerve twisting with anxiety. He doesn’t know why. It’s terrifying that he doesn’t know why.

 

“T….Taako?”

 

Someone he’s been working beside for impossibly long. Someone he’s loved for longer.

 

“Taako, I’m…”

 

Hours and days and years of talking fade away to nothing, lazy afternoons and laughter to darkness.

 

“What if who’s gone?”

 

“What are we…”

 

_Lup_ , he thinks. And his pulse hammers against his ribs. That’s it. Lup. Lup is…

 

“Oh God, Lup… Taako I’m… I can’t remember her face, Taako! Taako, where…”

 

He tries with all of his might to hang on to her, desperately clinging to all that he can. Tilted head. Gentle eyes. A night on the town, the feeling of fingers laced together. Gone, gone, gone. His hands burn, his muscles catch fire, he mumbles into the space around him as he loses this fight. This fight against Fischer, he thinks. He knows it’s Fischer, but can’t think beyond that, can’t understand what any of it means.

 

“Taako… k- kill me!”

 

His vision fades out as he starts to beg, pleading for death, for the forgetting to stop. He needs to be a lich. To forget would be to give up on her. Her smile, her laugh, the scrunch of her nose, the feeling of his arms around her. He begs for death, desperate, a loud and unholy sound filling his ears, until…

 

A sharp pain hits his chest. He coughs, stumbles backwards as his legs finally give out.

 

He sees someone in front of him, wand held out, eyebrows drawn together in a lazy confusion. Taako, he thinks. The world sharpens as it fades away, and he falls over the railing, smiling.

 

The smile carries him through the impossible times. He finds her in the middle of a fight for their lives.

 

They fight, and they win. 

 

Now, eight smiles gather on the deck, leaning over the railing as the world speeds beneath them. Merle grabs the back of Mookie’s shirt as he climbs up, trying to get a real good look.

 

“Not so fast, kiddo.”

 

Mavis sighs, but admires the view all the same.

 

Barry, Lup, Taako, and Kravitz stand pressed together, Taako’s long, loose hair tickling their faces in the wind.  

 

Magnus has pulled Lucretia up to the edge, pointing out landmark after landmark, never pausing, as if his silence could break her. She is the only one not smiling, eyes glassed over, face stony. She sees something different on the deck. A broken railing. Taako’s crumpled body. The guilt gnaws at her. She thought she could handle this, but she can’t help the crushing feeling that she deserves no part of their happiness.

 

She snaps to attention as Magnus puts a hand on her shoulder. She looks up at him, slowly.

 

“We landed in a beautiful place,” he says, simply. His hand steadies her, and she looks back over the railing, trying her best to take in the view.

 

The ship is over water now, salty droplets spraying up into her face. It tastes of tears, but she forces a wry smile.

 

“We did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this while sick, because sometimes you just get sick and emotional and cheesy stuff falls out onto MS word oh no.


	4. The 'Saloon'

Davenport’s skin crawls as the tiny human child looks up at him.

 

“Do you want to play with me?”

 

New carpet smell fills the air of the Starblaster’s now fully-furnished common area. A small team has laid out a conceptual map in the centre, planning the final touches for every room of the ship. Davenport is usually very involved in everything these people do, but he will be the first to admit that he has no eye for interior design. He’d asked about putting an extra armchair in the cockpit, and the team had politely suggested he step back for the moment.

 

And, when he did step back, he had fallen directly into the clutches of this stray child, brought here by someone on the design team.

 

Davenport grits his teeth. The child has immediately singled him out as the only one not working, and is clearly counting on Davenport to relieve his boredom. It is maybe the most uncomfortable Davenport has ever felt. He should never have to feel this way on his own ship, his bridge to the stars.

 

It isn’t that Davenport dislikes children, necessarily, he simply has absolutely no idea how to speak to them. His own childhood is such a hazy memory, and all of his friends are like him, far too busy with scientific study to settle down with a family. His exposure has been severely limited.

 

The kid cocks his head, obviously expecting an answer. Davenport realizes that he's acting very odd.

 

_Get ahold of yourself_ , he chastises, mentally. _Children are just people, but... smaller. What sorts of things did you like, as a kid…?_

“Did you know that one of our suns is slightly older than the other?” he begins.  “And the two are spread out so distantly that we perceive the older sun as aging at a faster rate than the other.”

 

The kid raises an eyebrow. Davenport deflates.

 

“Just a… space… fact.”

 

The kid blows a raspberry. Davenport decides that children possess a capacity for cruelty beyond his current understanding. Now this is personal. He wracks his brain for a way to impress the kid.

 

“Okay, well, do you know where it is you’re standing, young man?”

 

The kid folds his arms.

 

“The Starblaster, duh.”

 

Davenport grins.

 

“Yes, the Starblaster! A spacecraft like this has never been made before! We’re about to explore not only our material plane, but the Planar System itself! There’s nothing more exciting than that.”

 

The kid does not look excited.

 

“It’s incredible! You have the opportunity to be in the saloon of the ship that’s going to rewrite history as we know it!”

 

The kid collapses onto the couch behind him, bouncing on the spot. His face remains coldly neutral.

 

“Saloon? Like cowboys have?”

 

“Well, um, the common area of a ship is also called a saloon.” Davenport pauses, and tries to think of a cool way to spin this.

 

“Isn’t that… cool?”

 

He does not succeed.

 

The kid turns and climbs up on the couch, walking along the back of it.

 

“I think it’s dumb.”

 

Davenport winces as the couch springs groan under the kid’s feet.

 

Time moves forward, in a blur of motion. The Starblaster’s saloon bustles with people as the finishing touches are put into place. Pillows are fluffed. Shelves are stocked. Steel is buffed to shine as bright as the two suns above. Everything is perfect for the crew’s fated arrival.

 

“It’s called a… saloon?”

 

Davenport sighs, and turns around to face his red-robed subordinates. This first tour of the ship has been going quite slowly, mostly due to the fact that the six of them won’t stop asking questions. Curiosity is good, but this is getting to be a bit much. Especially the kinds of questions that are being asked by…

 

Sure enough, Magnus is the one looking at Davenport expectantly, eyes wide like a child on Candlenights.

 

“Yes, Magnus. It’s a saloon.”

 

“Like cowboys have?” Magnus asks, breaking into an open-mouthed grin.

 

“No, it’s what they call the common area of a ship,” Davenport says. He feels a headache coming on.

 

“It’s a saloon, pardner,” says one of the twins. Davenport isn’t sure whether it’s Taako or Lup, with them both dressed in their loose robes, having done their hair and makeup the exact same way.

 

The twin holds out a fist, and Magnus bumps it with his own.

 

“I’m never going to call it anything else,” says Magnus, with a single nod.

 

And he doesn’t. When the Hunger destroys everything the travelers have ever known, they cautiously step through the ‘saloon’, heavy hearted, on their way to a strange new world.  When that world, too, is gone, the same travelers pile onto the saloon’s couches, comforting each other and staring blankly, hesitant to disembark again. They play board games in the saloon, read books in the saloon, nap on the saloon’s couches in the lazy afternoons.

 

Barry accidentally stains the carpet with some sample or another in cycle six. Magnus forgets to put his battle ax away before sitting on the couch in cycle eleven, leaving a permanent slice in the upholstery. Taako and Lup haul a free-standing hammock aboard in cycle twenty-three, and designate it specifically for ‘twin time’. Merle tries to use it, and it immediately spins and dumps him onto the ground. Lup insists that there’s no curse on it. Taako insists that, yeah, he totally cursed it.

 

Early on in cycle twenty-five, Davenport is bitten by a long, rodent-looking creature roaming the lush vineyards that cover the world they’ve found themselves in. He comes aboard with the wound, meeting Lucretia in the saloon, where she is reading a book.

 

“Hey, have you seen Merle around? I think something…”

 

He is passed out on the floor before his sentence is finished. Lucretia rushes him outside, where the villagers tell of a highly venomous creature that has been known to roam these fields.

 

No amount of ‘most people go their whole lives without seeing one’ and ‘we have the antidote right here’ and ‘this is so unfortunate, if only he’d come to us instead’ can stop Davenport from dying right there, only two months into the cycle.

 

“You know the saddest thing?” asks Taako later on, shaking a potato above the garbage can, freshly-peeled skin falling free.

 

“When the dogs die at the end of stories. Gets me every time,” says Magnus. He sits on the other couch opposite Taako, watching Lup chop vegetables as she kneels at the coffee table beside him.

 

Taako ignores him, moving on with his thought.

 

“The one time Davenport dies early on, it’s in literally the most old man world we could have come to.”

 

Lup hums in agreement.

 

“Yeah, no, this place is an old man’s dream. So many wine tours. Merle can barely keep his nasty hands off of all of these plants.”

 

Taako snorts.

 

“Okay, but Merle is a dirty nasty plant pervert. We’re gonna put that one aside. Lock it up real deep. Click, it’s gone! Focus on Davenport, here.”

 

“I miss him,” says Magnus, bowing his head.

 

“Well, why don’t we bring him back some souvenirs?” asks Lup, shrugging. She brings her chopped veggies towards Taako, scraping them into the giant pot of water he's prepared. Taako nods, slowly.

 

“Yeah, that’d probably be the nice thing to do. I swear to god, though, I’m gonna age a thousand years the second someone says the word ‘mouthfeel’”.

 

Someone says it about ten minutes into their first tour. The six remaining members of the IPRE crew spend the next few weeks on every wine tour offered in the area, listening to well-dressed people describe the various qualities of hundreds and hundreds of different types of wine, spirits, and beer. They buy all of their favourites, and end up having to buy a wine rack just to store it all.

 

One night, as they all sit in the saloon, reading and writing and spacing out, Lup reaches over to the wine rack, pulls off a random bottle, and pops the cork.

 

“Aren’t those for Davenport?” asks Lucretia, still writing with both hands as she looks up.

 

“Gotta make sure they’re not poisoned,” says Lup. “That would be a major bummer if that happened twice, right?”

 

Taako appears, as if from thin air, with six glasses. Two hours and seven bottles of God-knows-what later, the saloon is witness to the greatest party the crew has ever thrown for themselves. There is singing, dancing, and endless laughter as they stumble over each other, all limbs and grins.

 

An hour after that, things wind down pretty fast. Lucretia sits in her usual chair, doodling big shapes in her journals. Taako lounges in the twin hammock, wiggling his body so that it swings as high as he can get it to go without crashing to the ground. A vacant-eyed Barry, a snoring Merle, and a crying Magnus are wedged together on one couch.

 

Lup drapes herself across the three of them, and Merle ‘snerk’s awake. Lup kicks her feet, hitting Magnus in the thighs.

 

“’Smatter, Mags Mikkelson?”

 

Magnus sniffs loudly, rubbing at his eyes with giant palms.

 

“I miss Cap'nport somuch,” he whispers, before breaking into fresh sobs.

 

“We alllllllll fuckingdo!” says Lup, raising her arms and punching Merle lightly in the face. “Don’t we, Barry Ann Summers?”

 

Barry breaks into frantic giggles. His face is bright red, either from the alcohol or from the fact that Lup’s head is in his lap. Probably both, actually.

 

“Lucretia!” says Magnus, lurching forward under Lup’s legs. “Lucretia I need… get paper!”

 

She looks up at him, taking a few seconds to focus her gaze.

 

“What do you need paper for?”

 

“’M gonna write a letter to Capnport.”

 

“Fuck yeah,” mumbles Lup. “That’ll fuckin show ‘im. Me too, Magnus Obel. Give it.”

 

Somehow, they all end up with paper and pen, scrawling notes to Davenport in a drunken stupor. Many tears are shed.

 

The next day, with pounding headaches, they all search the ship. No one remembers exactly what they wrote, but they all agree that the letters can never be read.

 

“How hard can it be to find a few pieces of paper?” Merle groans, rubbing at his eyes.

 

Magnus grunts and runs a hand along the top of a bookshelf, feeling weirdly responsible for this mess.

 

They never find them. Eventually, they agree to just hope the letters don’t make it to the next cycle.

 

In cycle twenty-six, Davenport walks through the saloon after his nightly inspection of the machinery in the cockpit. He comes across the wine rack, smiling softly at the thoughtfulness of his crew.

 

He returns a few minutes later with a wineglass, deciding to treat himself to something new. He selects a bottle of something called “elderflower du vin”, but notices it feels oddly light as he pulls it off the rack. He opens it to find it empty, save for some papers, wadded up in the neck of the bottle.

 

He carefully extracts them all, shaking out the bottle and reaching in to get every paper before he unfolds them.

 

He reads every letter once before he reacts. And then the laughter begins.

 

He laughs harder than he has ever laughed in his entire life. His guffaws ring throughout the ship, booming louder than any sound someone his size should be able to make. He laughs until his stomach hurts, then laughs through the pain.

 

Barry, whose room is the closest to the saloon, pokes his head out from behind the door, hair ruffled and eyes bleary with sleep.

 

“Whassa… No.”

 

He eyes the papers Davenport has splayed all over the coffee table, horror dawning on his face.

 

“Go to bed, Barry,” says Davenport, wiping a tear from his eye. “I need… some time to process this.”

 

“Well fuck,” says Barry, still staring at the letters. He heaves a deep sigh, then gradually shuts the door.

 

At breakfast the next morning, the sight of the crew all together sends Davenport into a fresh wave of laughter, so strong that he nearly chokes on his toast. Knowledge gets out that the letters were found, but no one dares mention it aloud. Davenport stores the letters in a drawer of the cockpit, and pulls them out to read whenever he needs a pick-me-up.

 

Magnus wrote a very tearful message about how much he missed Davenport, describing everything he missed about the captain’s ‘leaderness’, right down to the way his hair smelled. Merle’s message was as brief as it was impossible to follow, topics ranging at a breakneck pace from ‘do you think all people have the capacity for evil?’ to ‘when’ll we find fudgesicles again, miss those little assholes’. Taako had written several paragraphs assuring Davenport that he wasn’t drunk, and was just fooling everyone else. His handwriting was shaky and huge, and he kept drifting off topic to talk about cooking techniques and mouthfeel and how he suspected Merle of being a ‘plant fucker’. Lucretia had developed a very coherent, sixteen-page essay explaining exactly why she viewed Davenport as a father figure. Lup had presented a critique of all of the alcohol they’d bought him, with criteria such as ‘tastes like ass—taako is wrong’, ‘colours nshit’, and ‘fuck’. Lup’s letter was mostly swearing, in hindsight. Barry’s letter was maybe Davenport’s favourite. The poor guy had tried to write some poetry. Enough said.

 

Davenport weathers many difficult flights with these letters as a guide. As the crew hunkers down in the ship, white-knuckled, he remembers the bonds that tie them together, and they always come out on the other side of the storm.

 

Cycle forty-nine. A world full of such constant storms that Davenport can barely land the Starblaster after he reforms at the helm. They soon discover a civilization of people living underground, generations spent in darkness, too afraid of the storms to brave the surface world.

 

The Starblaster is key to helping these people, they realize. To explore the areas above, to map out a world that has never been seen by the eyes of its inhabitants, could provide information vital to changing their situation.

 

The Starblaster skims low on the surface, Davenport expertly twisting it through wind and rain and snow as Lucretia sketches everything in sight with vigor.

 

After a few weeks of exploration, they spot a mysterious greenish glow on the horizon. In trying to fly towards it, however, the storms become so violent that Davenport eventually gives up on the idea completely, parking the Starblaster in a safe spot and hunkering down for the night. Their main goal is always to secure the light of creation, and the light of creation isn’t green. It isn’t worth it to sacrifice their crew.

 

The next morning, Magnus stumbles aboard, battered and bloody, clutching a falcon tube glowing green.

 

After taking some serious scolding, Magnus ends up in the saloon, covered in bandages and holding a bag of frozen peas against a swollen spot on his head. Merle wraps a cloth around Magnus’ elevated foot, nose wrinkled.

 

The others have scattered by now, Lup and Barry to the lab to examine the sample, Lucretia and Davenport to continue their exploration, Taako to make them all some sort of emergency breakfast. Being alone with Merle makes Magnus feel oddly vulnerable, like Merle’s disappointment is the worst of any of theirs.

 

He adjusts Magnus’ foot one last time, sending a shooting pain up his leg. Magnus winces, which hurts his face, which hurts his neck.

 

Merle plants his hands on his knees, giving Magnus a stern and unapologetic look. Magnus’ stomach squirms a little. It’s super weird to see Merle like this. Magnus desperately tries to think of something, anything, he can say to break the silence, but Merle beats him to it.

 

“Why’d you go and do that, dummy?”

 

Magnus looks away from Merle’s gaze.

 

“I wanted to help. The green stuff seemed important.”

 

He doesn’t have anything else to say. It really is that simple. The things Magnus does always are.

 

“Well why didn’t you ask one of us to go with you?” asks Merle. “Probably Lup, or…”

 

“I didn’t need help. I’m fine,” says Magnus. His head is pounding. He just wants to rest.

 

Merle snorts, still staring at Magnus.

 

Magnus is, at his core, a people pleaser. He hates it when anyone is upset with him. It’s this feeling, or maybe the power of Merle’s gaze, or maybe he hit his head worse than he thought, that brings the tears to the back of his eyes. His throat closes up as he fights them back. Before he even knows what he’s saying, he spills his guts to Merle.

 

“I’m just… sick of being treated like the baby of the crew. I’m like everyone’s kid brother. I can do stuff, too, you know?”

 

He feels the tears overflow, rolling down his scratched-up cheeks.

 

“What… part of going off alone into a huge storm at night makes you think _we’ll_ think you’re capable of making good decisions?” asks Merle, incredulous.

 

Magnus bites the inside of his lip.

 

“I just… wanted to _do_ something.”

 

Magnus had been hired onto the IPRE as a protector, someone who could look after the others if things got hairy. Yet, somehow, the others always ended up looking after him instead. It wasn’t often that he thought about how much younger he was, but still he felt it. When Barry ruffled his hair, or the twins made him a late-night snack, or Davenport asked him about his day over dinner. When Merle bandaged his wounds extra gently. Even Lucretia, who was only a few years older than him, was given a lot more adult responsibility. It’s nice, to know that they care, but still he can’t help but feel like he should be doing more to prove himself to them.

 

“Magnus…”

 

Merle pats Magnus’ knee, resting his hand there. Magnus thanks the gods that it’s his good leg.

 

“Magnus, I don’t care how old you might have been when we started this thing. We’ve been on the road here for just about _fifty_ years. Face it, Maggie, you’re an old fart like the rest of us.”

 

Magnus laughs, and his head throbs in protest.

 

“But you treat me like a little kid!” he insists. “The hair ruffling… the snacks… the knee patting…”

 

“We don’t do that because we think you’re a kid!” says Merle, giving his knee another, firm pat. “We do that because you’re _you!_ ”

 

Magnus frowns.

 

“What?”

 

“You’ve got this way about you, buddy. You’re just so dang happy and energetic all the time. Makes people want to do chummy stuff with you.”

 

Magnus chews on this, letting his head loll back onto the couch.

 

“We love you exactly the way you are. Now get some rest. This leg’s gonna hurt like hell in a few hours.”

 

Magnus groans.

 

But, in the next few years, Magnus does learn to appreciate the special ways the others interact with him. He doesn’t always have to be the bravest, or strongest, or most reliable. He doesn’t have to prove to them that he’s smart, or motivated. Which is extra good in cycle fifty-one, because holy hell he does not want to join the college crew.

 

The world of cycle fifty-one is vast and green, but the entire populace lives clustered around one, giant campus in the foothills of a misty mountain range. Everyone who’s anyone here attends the great college, and unlocks information that this world has cultivated over centuries of study.

 

Most of the crew is not so excited about the idea. Magnus and Merle are confident enough in the things they know, and they don’t think they need to be able to ream off a bunch of useless facts in order to be smart. Taako is way too chill to ever want to deal with the people at the college, sick of listening to them talk about _thesis statements_ and _theorems_ and, he thinks, just trying to upstage each other with everything they say. Davenport gets so majorly stressed out at the idea of more school that they have to sit him down and speak soothingly for a while.

 

So that leaves Lucretia, Barry, and Lup as the sole crewmembers left to study on the floor of the saloon late one night. Midterms are almost upon them. Stress crackles through the air. Lucretia fights it off with coffee and highlighters.

 

Barry had given up a few hours ago, and now lies completely passed out with a pillow pressed to Lup’s hip. His arm is thrown lazily across her lap as he snores lightly, and Lup has balanced the corner of a book on his elbow, drumming her fingers on the cover as she reads.

 

 “Lucretia, are we expected to know the full list of transmutation methods for the midterm?”

 

Lucretia looks up from her highlighting with a frown.

 

“I memorized it just in case. I don’t remember what the professor said, though.”

 

Lup groans, flipping through the next five pages of the textbook.

 

“There’s so much shit. This is Taako’s bag, I will literally never need to know this.”

 

Lucretia shrugs. That’s college.

 

“It’s easier if you use a memory device. That’s what I do for most things,” she says.

 

“Mmm, so? What’s your deal with this one?”

 

Lucretia blushes, looking back down at her paper.

 

“It’s dumb,” she says. “Try to make your own.”

 

“Lucretia, all of my good brain juices have been replaced by caffeine. If you don’t give ya girl some help here, I might fail the exam and die.”

 

Lucretia laughs.

 

“Well, there are worse ways to die, I suppose.”

 

The corner of Lup’s mouth quirks upwards.

 

“No fucking way. Humiliation on top of death is the pits.”

 

“You’ve been eaten by a giant squid before,” says Lucretia. “And weren’t you tortured once?”

 

Lup laughs, swinging her book upwards and tapping it gently on Lucretia’s head.

 

“Way to dig that one up, Luc. I’m gonna need that memory device just to distract me from the pain, now.”

 

“You’ll live, is all I’m saying,” says Lucretia, still smiling. She wonders at what point their memories of death switched from tormenting to humorous.

 

Talking to Lup is special, in that way. Where the others will change the topic, or cut into awkward silence, Lup is never afraid to candidly discuss the difficult things. Lucretia relies on Lup to help her work through her hardships, often with a lightness of tone inappropriate to the situation. Lucretia doesn’t mind, though. She’s always found laughter to be preferable to crying.

 

“To live is to die, am I right, my dude?” asks Lup. She stretches out her arms, then collapses backwards onto the floor. Barry stirs, but doesn’t wake up. Lup pats his hair fondly.

 

“Mm, I’d say so,” says Lucretia, not quite sure if they’re joking anymore.

 

There’s a pause, the only sound the tap of Lup’s fingers against the textbook, which lies, unread, across her chest.

 

“Can Taako come by sometime? Chad’s peepum didn’t croak.”

 

Lup raises her head, brow furrowed.

 

“Fucking what?”

 

Lucretia sighs.

 

“Circle, tertiary, creation, body, soul, channeling, projection, destruction, conjuring. I told you it made no sense.”

 

Lup laughs, the textbook sliding off of her and onto the floor.

 

“Sometimes I wonder what goes on in that big smart brain of yours.”

 

Sometimes Lucretia wonders too. As she ages without changing, travels without distance, as she morphs into a shadow of the person she once knew, she finds herself thinking darker and darker thoughts. She sees the Hunger in her dreams, fights it without victory. She comes to one solution. They need to run, to protect themselves, just as they always have.

 

The others disagree. They come up with a new plan. She fights them in the beginning, but eventually concedes. She needs to be with them, to be at peace with them. She can’t lose them. She would rather die.

 

They create their relics in the ninety-ninth cycle. Emotions run high, words cut through. They are wound tight, one wrong move prepped to break them all. All they can do is laugh, crowded in the saloon, comparing creations.

 

They all take bets on who can high-five Lup’s gauntlet without flinching. No one succeeds. Lup pretends that this doesn’t scare her to pieces.

 

The twins play keep-away with Davenport’s occulus, until they accidentally create a projectile that busts through the rear wall of the ship. Davenport’s heart thunders at the thought of what could have happened had it hit one of the crew instead.

 

Barry repairs the wall of the ship with a spell, and their focus turns to him, teasing him for being a super dramatic goth. He has created a bell that affects the dead. He created it thoughtlessly, as if possessed. He did it to test his skills, to prove to himself that he exists, that something of this journey was worth it. He is scared of himself, but he laughs.

 

Taako’s philosopher’s stone is just a rock. A literal rock. He tosses it up and down as he explains how cool it is. His voice wavers as he does.

 

Merle’s fashion sense is put on blast as they critique the Gaia sash. He wraps it around himself, and the way it immediately makes him feel, speaking to him, chiding him, sends pulses of electricity down his spine. He rips the thing off, laughs so he doesn’t cry.

 

They tease Lucretia for making such a withered staff, saying it makes her look like an old lady. She feels like an old lady. She feels so impossibly, indescribably old.

 

When Magnus presents his chalice, lips trembling, they all break into Cher at once, lungs bursting at the strength of their voices. Singing, screaming, _if I could tuuuurn back tiiiiiime…_

They disperse. Footsteps in the sand, the splash of water in a well, explosions and fires, war and pain, death and destruction. Indescribable pain. Fade to black.

 

Merle prays as Faerun burns. He kneels in the saloon, everyone too holed up on their own to come out and stumble across him. He prays, alone, for hours. Days. Forever. Tears leak from his eyes, roll onto clasped hands. He begs for something to save them. Pan doesn’t answer.

 

In darker moments, he wonders if Pan is even listening.

 

Pan does listen. The God is trapped in his own world, listening to Merle’s pleas, his Merle, his champion in a world being lost to darkness. A world set to be consumed, by hubris, or fear, or an unfathomable, insatiable, Hunger. As Merle cries, so does Pan, trapped in a gilded prison, unable to stop what they have begun. Later, he finds himself trapped for real. He watches a world pushed to the brink of destruction, but he will not turn away.

 

And then, he is free. He embraces his champion as Merle saves the world. The seven heroes, these gods from another world, these people, only people, defeat that which they have been fighting for one hundred years, together. Shadows dissolve. The wounded are healed. Embracing, crying, laughter. Laughter that is more exhale than in, a freedom, a hundred-year weight released to the cold morning air. Morning fades to night.

 

On another night, over a year later, Lucretia wanders into the Starblaster’s saloon, head weak with tiredness, limbs clunky, a sheet draped around heavy shoulders. She was hoping to light a candle and read for a while, having forgone the idea of sleep in her old cabin, surrounded by the memories of what she had once done in there.

 

Instead, she finds Lup.

 

Lup is sitting on the couch, legs tucked beside her, sipping a cup of something hot as she looks over some papers in the moonlight. The floor creaks under Lucretia’s stuttering feet, and Lup snaps to attention. Softens at the sight of her.

 

“What’s up, pal?”

 

Lucretia shifts, drawing the sheet tighter around her shoulders. She feels impossibly old. She feels like a child.

 

“I… couldn’t sleep,” she says, airily. “It’s become a pattern for me. Nothing to be concerned about.”

 

She attempts the same light tone she’s always kept when spilling her heart to Lup. Instead, she cringes at her wording. How could she just _assume_ that Lup, of all people, could hold any space for concern over her?

 

“Mmm, pull up some couch,” says Lup. She pats the couch next to her, and spills her drink in her lap, grimacing. Lup has been back in her body for several months, now, but she still moves with a certain clumsiness that makes the bottom of Lucretia’s ribs ache.

 

She sits down at the opposite end of the couch, stiffly. Lup pulls the wet section of her pyjama pants away from her skin, stretching out her legs and letting her feet rest in Lucretia’s lap. Lucretia flinches.

 

“I can’t sleep either,” she admits. “I mean, I don’t _need_ to, I guess. But I like it. Takes a real load off.”

 

Lucretia bites her lip. If Lucretia can’t sleep because of her own mistakes, because of suffering she’s brought onto herself, she can’t imagine what Lup must be going through. Years of isolation and pain, of betrayal, everything through absolutely no fault of her own.

 

“I’m… so sorry,” she whispers to Lup’s feet.

 

“Hey!” Lup says, pulling up to thump Lucretia’s thigh with her heel. “Remember my rule about all the apologizing.”

 

Lucretia takes in half a breath. She can’t bring herself to laugh through this, even with Lup there. She’s starting to really believe that Lup has forgiven her. The forgiveness maybe hurts more than the anger.

 

“But I am sorry,” says Lucretia, still not looking up. “I can’t… I can never atone for the things I did to you. To all of you.”

 

Lup huffs out half a breath.

 

“Lucretia, I mean it! If I didn’t mean it, I wouldn’t say it, capiche?”

 

She folds her arms, guards her heart.

 

“I… nights are just me spending half of my day alone, trying to hold onto everything around me. Or, if I feel like sleeping, I just get stuck again, and freak Barry out with screaming and shit. And then the other half of my day is just pretending everything is okay while everyone I love treats me like I’m gonna fall to pieces at any second. You’re, like, the realest person I know, Lucretia, and this avoiding me thing? This bummer atmosphere? Fucking sucks.”

 

A spell is broken. Lucretia looks up at Lup, eyes prickling. Lup tilts her head up and runs a hand through her hair, fingers trembling. She has been keeping this inside for too long, Lucretia realises.

 

“So, yeah, when I said I forgave you, I _meant_ it. Please, just trust me on this.”

 

Lucretia doesn’t know what to do. No jokes come to mind. Nothing at all, really. Before she can react, Lup scoots across the couch, pulling her into a deep hug, arms clumsy, breath fast against Lucretia’s neck. Lucretia feels tears prickling in her throat. Before she can hug her back, Lup shoots to the other end of the couch again, arms crossed.

 

“There. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

 

Another apology forms on Lucretia’s lips. She pauses, fights to transform it into something else.

 

“… thank you.”

 

Lup smiles, and sits back with a satisfied look. There are a few minutes of contented silence, before Lucretia feels the sadness growing again.

 

“I don't think the others will ever feel the same way,” she whispers. “They're not as forgiving as you. Maybe… not Merle or Magnus, I suppose, but…”

 

“Don’t worry about them,” Lup cuts in, locking eyes with Lucretia, holding her gaze. Lup’s eyes catch the moonlight, adding an ethereal quality to her words.

 

“Davenport is… he gets mad, and then it blows over. He just needs some time to chill out. He’ll come around, and he’ll love you again. Nah, he still loves you now. He’s simple like that, y’know?”

 

She knows.

 

“As for Barry… the guy doesn’t ever argue with anyone. He’s a non-confrontational dork,” says Lup, eyes softening. “I’ve beaten up so many baddies for him, you have no idea. He just argues with himself. In his head, like. Sometimes I’m worried he thinks too damn much. But he’ll think himself through anything, eventually. And I’ll help him along, don’t you worry about that.”

 

Lup takes a sip of her drink. Long. Deliberate.

 

“And Taako…”

 

Another sip. Lucretia’s heart sinks. Her throat burns. She won’t let herself cry. She doesn’t deserve to cry, not in front of Lup.

 

“Taako still loves you, Lucretia. That’s why it hurts so much, I think.”

 

Lucretia can barely breathe.

 

“Just know that… some bonds are so strong they can’t be broken. No matter what happens.”

 

Lucretia nods, squeezing her eyes shut. She hears footsteps, and opens her eyes again.

 

“Mmm, everything okay, babe?” asks Lup, setting her drink aside.

 

Barry pads into the room, in jeans and an oversized T-shirt reading “LICHES GET STITCHES”. Lucretia wonders, briefly, if he was actually sleeping in that, or just pulled it on before coming here.

 

“I…” Barry rubs his eyes. His voice is thick with sleep. “You weren’t there when I woke up.”

 

Lup’s face softens, and she reaches out a hand, stretching over the arm of the couch. He steps over to her and grabs it, holding onto it like a lifeline.

 

“’M right here, love. Go back to sleep.”

 

Barry leans down to kiss her, softly, then startles as he straightens up, finally noticing Lucretia there. He visibly tenses, watching her without comment.

 

“I’m just chatting with Lucretia,” Lup says, gesturing towards her with her free hand. “I’ll be there soon, m’kay?”

 

Barry looks like he very clearly does not want to go back to bed alone. But he grumbles out a response, still looking at Lucretia.

 

“Okay, see you soon.”

 

“Love you,” says Lup, kissing the back of his hand before letting go.

 

“Love you too.”

 

Then Barry is gone, and Lucretia’s heart aches. The silence he leaves behind is heavy and painful.

 

“You should sleep too, you crazy kid,” says Lup, poking her with a toe. “Big day tomorrow.”

 

Lucretia hums a response. Big day tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I listened to the 8tracks mix “Seven Birds” by thevelosarahptor while writing the last part of this, so if something's off please understand that it is VERY hard to write through tears.


	5. The Bathroom

No matter how you frame it, there is nothing glamorous about a bathroom. The engineers and designers behind the Starblaster did their best, but there’s simply no arguing with this fact.

 

Every room in the Starblaster was meticulously planned. The ship was designed to carry seven intelligent, hardworking people in the most strategic way possible. The crew should have common areas, to plan in. A lab, for experimentation with unforeseeable discoveries. Every member of the crew was given a separate cabin, in order to maximize comfort. But the ship’s skeleton creaked under its weight, and in the end there wasn’t too much room left over for a bathroom. As with most vessels meant for transportation, a small shower was jammed next to a toilet next to a sink. Fantasy washer and drier. A large mirror. Some cupboards. Nothing excessively fancy, but nothing that would be cumbersome to a medium-sized crew packed together for weeks, or even months.

 

As it happened, the crew was together on the ship for lots of months. Years, even.

 

There is nothing glamorous about a hundred-year-old bathroom.

 

The Starblaster’s bathroom had humble origins. More than any other, this room displayed the blend of personalities on board the ship. The cupboards were packed with different kinds of toothpaste and mouthwash, makeup and wide-toothed combs, something called “beard oil” and untouched contact lens solution. It was impossible to shower without knocking over every flavour of shampoo and body wash. No matter how many shelves were installed as time went on, every surface remained crammed with everyday necessities.

 

“Oh, boysie!”

 

Magnus cringed as six different bottles clattered to the ground. He’d maybe posed a bit too awesomely. Definitely punched a shelf by accident.

 

He stooped, and gathered the bottles in shame. Admired the way his muscles moved as he wrapped his arms around them. Oh, yeah. He was gonna be great.

 

Cycle nineteen was a world obsessed with the idea of working out everyday problems through violence. Magnus wasn’t big on that part of things, but after a day spent information-gathering at the central arena, watching gladiators in battle armor knock each other around while crowds roared, he got an itch in his heart that he just had to scratch.

 

He went looking, and it wasn’t hard to find someone who needed his services. A scrawny teenager, accused of stealing food from the market. The kid had six younger siblings at home with hungry mouths to feed. He was quick, with nimble hands built for stealing, but not strong enough to stand a chance in combat. So Magnus agreed to fight for him, at no cost.

 

For justice!

 

Magnus was prepared to spend the whole cycle like this, defending the honor of people who couldn’t do it for themselves. The others hadn’t been as excited about his ideas.

 

“It seems like a bad system, to me,” said Lucretia, over dinner. “You can’t judge a person on strength alone. Justice aside, there’s so much more to people. Bravery, and intelligence… show me an arena that’ll test those things.”

 

“Yeah, okay. Someday, when you build your arena, you can do that,” said Magnus, waving a hand at her. “But this is gonna be a cool cycle. I know a cool cycle when I see one.”

 

He tells himself that she’s just jealous that this cycle caters to Magnus’ abilities, for once. As the only non-magic member of the IPRE crew, it’s so rare that he ever gets to prove himself like this. Yeah. It’s Magnus time now.

 

He dumps the bottles back on the shelf, and immediately strikes another pose. Arms out. Abs flexed. Awesome.

 

He admires himself in the mirror, shirtless and muscular. He’s been practicing his poses, and he’s managed to find a bunch of flattering angles for the crowd. He’s allowed to be proud of this, dammit. Now he just needs to look as cool as possible for the fight tomorrow.

 

He shifts to the side, checking out his pose from that angle. Makes a scary face. No, that looks dumb. He smiles. Also dumb. He’ll have to workshop that one.

 

Someone knocks on the door, and he drops his arms to the side again.

 

Eight more years of knocking on doors. The bathroom is fought over constantly. In one cycle, the entire crew gets food poisoning off of some weird, see-through fish. In one, deodorant isn’t invented, and supplies run frighteningly low.

 

All things considered, cycle twenty-seven is pretty chill. They land in a sleepy riverside village, full of people devoted to their deity. The seven of them are treated very well, but the villagers don’t have much land to spare. The crew live on the Starblaster, visiting the shrines and enjoying the atmosphere through the peaceful days. Merle thrives in this town, blending right into the religious atmosphere despite the fact that he’s never even heard of their God before.

 

“It doesn’t matter who we worship, we’re all going to the same place,” he insists, every time someone questions him. Always with the wag of a finger and the tilt of a smile. He’s so sure of himself that no one even bothers to ask what he means by that. When Lucretia gives him a quizzical glance, he simply says that he has friends on the other side.

 

Merle spends a lot of time coaching the townsfolk in religious devotion. He teaches them his own ways, and they share their practices with him.

 

Now, Merle combs his beard in front of the mirror, slowly and lovingly working through the tangles.

 

Barry watches, concerned, from over by the shower, brushing his teeth in slow, deliberate circles. Merle’s been acting weirdly professional this cycle, and it freaks everyone out just a bit. Barry has never seen the guy so well-groomed.

 

Merle’s comb snags on a knot, and he sets to work untangling it, fingers and comb working together in a gentle sort of dance.  Eventually he gets it, running the comb slowly back through the length of his beard until he hits another knot. The cycle continues.

 

Barry realizes, with a start, that he’s been standing there with toothpaste in his mouth for maybe ten minutes now. There’s something hypnotic about watching this, in an almost soothing sort of way. He steps up beside Merle to finish up, rinsing out his mouth and toothbrush, and dropping it in the IPRE mug that holds six other toothbrushes. He pauses as he straightens up, still watching Merle’s reflection in the mirror. Merle works his way through another knot, running his comb through a long and satisfying section of hair.

 

“You, uh… you think I could pull that off?” asks Barry, breaking the silence. He gestures to his chin, motioning downward.

 

Merle pauses, eyes meeting Barry’s in the mirror.

 

“What, a beard?”

 

Barry nods, hands still hovering over his chin.

 

Merle breaks into laughter, and Barry lets his hands fall to his sides.

 

“Kid, I’ve been working on this baby since before you were born.”

 

Barry frowns.

 

“I don’t need it to be super long or anything. Just, you know. A little beard. For a change of pace, like.”

 

He rubs his chin, feeling the scruff of a couple days without shaving. It could be nice to not have to worry about upkeep for a while.

 

“Hate to break it to you Barry, but some people just aren’t meant to grow beards. It’s a thing, you know, and you’ve either got it or you don’t. I look at you, and I see a face that just… you don’t.”

 

Barry snorts, annoyed. He examines his face in the mirror. Really pictures it. He’s starting to get sick of the same old face, resetting to zero after every year. His head and heart feel so different than when he started, so much older and wiser from his travels. But he still has the same old face, round and pasty and with the beginnings of some lines around his eyes and mouth. A face that his mom, gradeschool teachers, and every girl he’d ever liked had called a ‘baby face’. He thinks it probably used to bother him. Maybe a beard would make him look older, tougher.

 

“Just remember,” says Merle, back to brushing. “We only have one beard comb. And I ain’t sharing.”

 

Barry shudders, immediately deciding against the beard.

 

Hit fast forward. A blur of limbs and colours and scents. Laundry is washed and rewashed. Seven people get ready for day after day after lonely day. The exploration of even the strangest of worlds begins with teeth brushing and beard combing.

 

In cycle forty-three, they happen upon a world ruled by a corrupt and all-powerful monarchy. After weeks spent wandering, searching for the Light of Creation amid starving, frightened people, they decide to put the search for the light on pause, and take down the world government. No big deal.

 

Lup admires her reflection in the mirror, tilting her head from side to side. Red is a great colour on her, naturally. Just a simple prestidigitation, and her usual red robe is a flowing red gown, sparkling and clinging in all the right places. Makeup a perfect complement. Hair on fucking point, pinned up with just the right amount of curl framing her face. Hell yeah. Time for some top class subterfuge.

 

Tonight is the eldest prince’s eighteenth birthday. Eligible women from all over the kingdom are to be presented to him as possible brides. By the end of the night, one will be chosen. Supposedly.

 

If all goes according to plan, the Starblaster crew should have the king all good and kidnapped before that has to happen. And that’ll stir things up, for sure.

 

Lup turns towards Lucretia, who is looking at her own reflection with a much more troubled expression. Lucretia definitely looks less flashy than Lup, but still pretty drop-dead gorgeous. A simple silver and blue aesthetic. It suits her.

 

“Mmmm better watch out,” says Lup. “We’ll have to tone down the hotness or one of us is gonna end up engaged tonight.”

 

“Lup… you know I’ve just had dinner,” says Lucretia, deadpan.

 

“That’s the spirit!” says Lup.

 

She pulls on Lucretia’s wrist, securing a thin silver bracelet around it. Lucretia looks at it, then up to Lup, raising an eyebrow. Lup winks.

 

“For luck.”

 

Lucretia drops her arm, smiling just enough to let Lup know she’s grateful. It really is a beautiful bracelet. One of Lup’s favourites.

 

“Almost ready to go?”

 

Magnus’ head pokes around the door frame, cautious. He’s all set to go, carrying supplies and dressed in dark clothes. He’s on the ‘bag up the dictator’ team, with Barry and Taako. Merle and Davenport are going to be Lup and Lucretia’s beloved fathers, respectively. They hail from faraway lands, to present their daughters to the prince. Lup’s blood boils at the whole system. This dude seriously can’t be taken out soon enough.

 

“Yes, done. Ready for a real bad time,” says Lucretia, turning her gaze away from the mirror. Lup does the same, but still tries to catch glimpses out of the corner of her eye. The hair curls are _so_ good.

 

Everyone else is gathered around the doorway now, in various states of nerves. Taako looks totally chill, which is annoying. He should be so jealous right now. Barry looks like he’s going to be sick, maybe. He’s staring at Lup, only, and she realizes they’re doing a pretty un-chill amount of eye contact. She tears her gaze away from him, unable to help but fluff out her dress a bit, showing off. Merle and Davenport look itchy in some really choice tailcoats.

 

The boys part as Lucretia steps forward. Before she can go further, Lup grabs her shoulder in a talon grip, leaning forward to whisper into Lucretia’s ear.

 

“Anyways, if any garbo dudes try to hit on you, just give that bracelet a tap,” Lup says.

 

Lucretia brings her wrist back up, looking at it a lot more closely, now. Wearily.

 

“Don’t do it in here!” Lup hisses. “Just trust Lup on this one. You’ll have all the backup you need.”

 

Lucretia puts her arm down stiffly, but with the hint of a grateful smile.

 

Luckily, Lucretia does not need the help. The night actually goes well, considering. The king doesn’t stay kidnapped for long, which wasn’t quite the plan, but he is spooked just enough to plant the seeds of a revolution in the common folk. The year passes with roots, firm on a rainy day. The glow of the light of creation. A glint of silver.

 

Cycle fifty. Taako’s eyes follow something silver out of the fantasy washing machine, and he plucks it out, to find that it’s attached to a gaudy sort of striped shirt thing. Definitely not Taako’s. Definitely Merle’s. Taako is not a happy Taako.

 

“Nope. Not todaaaaay, old man,” he says, dropping Merle’s wet shirt back on top of the washer. A small pile follows it, crinkled and soggy, as Taako continues plucking through his laundry. His entire basket of hard work ends up being about forty percent Merle, with a healthy dose of Magnus. And probably some of it is Lup’s, but honestly he’s lost track of whose is whose between most of their clothes. He has a few things he loves, and builds around that.

 

In general, Taako loves to wear things. He’s good at it. He just kind of, looks good? All the time. What Taako does not love is to do laundry. And Taako super does not love to do laundry for his lazy crewmates who sneak their stuff into everyone else’s bins.

 

Taako bumps the dryer door closed with his hip, then twists the dial with an unholy scraping noise. He presses a button, and feels magic prickle his fingers, reacting to the magic of the machine. It comes to life, and begins lightly roasting Taako’s stuff.

 

Taako takes a moment to lament the world they’ve ended up in. Cycle fifty is super streamlined, with every resident spending basically every waking hour working at full throttle, with their everyday joys compressed into food pellets and treadmill desks and cold showers. The Starblaster’s food stores ran out about a week ago, and everyone has been on edge ever since, twins especially. When Taako and Lup can’t cook, they get antsy. When Taako’s only real chore is to do laundry, he goes into full-on rage mode. Unstoppable, uncontrollable machine. Part man, part machine, mostly machine. All anger.

 

Taako runs the scenarios in his head, and eventually decides to be as passive aggressive as possible, for maximum benefit and least energy spent. Maybe this world is rubbing off on him, after all. After retrieving a pad of paper and a pen, he leaves a note on the pile of wet clothes on top of the washer.

 

_Got some water on your shit, sorry. –Taako <3_

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a greyish food pellet, and scowls as he swallows it. Time for a cold shower, just to get the mood right.

 

Usually, the crew has hot showers. It all depends on the order of things. Even the strongest hot water spell wears off after a while, and even on the best of days there’s usually at least one unlucky passenger who chooses the wrong time frame.

 

Most of them are good about water conservation. Merle is a problem, sometimes. Taako is brutal. Anyone who showers after Taako is doomed to freeze to death, all while slipping on puddles of hair product. Other than that, they have a pretty good system going.

 

And then there’s the mirror art. Anyone who showers after Magnus is treated to the worn, drippy remains of an animal doodle, often with messages like “you’re gonna be great today!” etched into the mirror. Taako says that much happiness in the morning makes him sick. Davenport begs him to please stop smudging the mirror. Barry just corrects spelling mistakes when he sees them. Merle rubs out letters until it spells something dumb like “you’re gon  a           d”. Lup just straight up draws dicks. Only Lucretia responds, sometimes tracing out a simple “thank you” or “I know”.

 

In cycle 76 Lucretia stands in the bathroom, dressed in a fluffy robe, preparing for bed after her nightly shower. Her finger squeaks across the mirror as she crosses out a “good morning” and writes a tiny “good night” beneath it. The ghost of the rest of the week’s messages make it almost unreadable.

 

She stifles a yawn, curling her toes in the shaggy carpet. She leans forward and opens the bathroom door, a gust of cold and dry air rushing in across her face.

 

“Oh, you done?”

 

Barry waits outside, pyjama pants draped over his arm. Lucretia has never actually seen him wear the pyjama pants. He just carries them around sometimes, mysteriously.

 

“Yes, go ahead.”

 

Lucretia realizes about a minute later that she left one of her journals behind on the bathroom counter. She heads back down the hallway and knocks on the open door. Barry waves her in, then goes back to brushing his teeth slowly, hovering over the sink. He can barely keep his eyes open.

 

When Barry is on a roll with some theory or experiment, he basically never sleeps. He doesn't do it on purpose, he just loses track of things when he's absorbed like that. Tonight, after three late nights of pushing spell slot capacity in this world, he concedes. His eyes are heavy, his brain is buzzing, and his limbs are heavy. Time for some snoozin’ and snugglin’, as they say.

 

“Barry…?”

 

Lucretia’s hand hovers over her journal, paused as she stares at him. He turns to look at her, accidentally smearing a bit of toothpaste on his chin.

 

“Mmrph?”

 

Lucretia looks from the toothbrush cup, to Barry, and back.

 

“That is super not your toothbrush.”

 

Barry pulls it out of his mouth, spluttering. Horror slowly spreads through his entire body, eyes widening, toes clenched.

 

“Oh my Gods.”

 

He immediately drops the toothbrush, turns on the tap, and starts scooping cold water onto his tongue. He can hear Lucretia snorting at him from behind. She moves in beside him, eyeing the toothbrush.

 

“That one’s Taako’s,” she says. Barry groans.

 

“Holy fuck no. That’s so gross. I’ve got Taako juices in me now.” He shuts off the tap, head still hanging low.

 

“I know it seems bad to have Taako all up in you, Barry, but…” Lucretia puts a steady hand on his shoulder. “You know, he’s Lup’s identical twin. It’s the same juices, if that helps.”

 

Barry’s head thunks against the sink, softly. Heat rises in his cheeks, at the weight of what he’s done.

 

“I indirectly kissed my girlfriend’s brother,” he mumbles. “She’s…”

 

Barry raises his head, ready to beg for his life.

 

“Oh God Lucretia, you can’t tell her. She’d make fun of me forever.”

 

Lucretia runs her fingers over the journal, and he can see something evil behind her eyes. Maybe the twins are rubbing off on her.

 

“I don’t know. That seems, almost, morally wrong. Somehow.”

 

The negotiations last way longer than they should, realistically. In the end, Lucretia agrees to keep it a secret, and Barry decides to trust Lucretia. (Lup finds out anyway, of course.)

 

Trust wears thin, over time. A rubber band poised to snap. The crew drifts apart, in space but not in bond. Emotions run high, and the energy drains from every part of the ship.

 

Davenport wakes up in the bath, wrinkly and confused. He shivers as he drains the tub and pulls on a bathrobe. The red of the thing hurts his eyes.

 

How is it possible to take a bath, and end up feeling grosser than you did when you started? The turmoil in his chest matches the wars raging below, the destruction of a world at the hands of the seven of them, and their choices. As captain, he takes on the weight of all of it. He feels smaller than ever, carrying a weight that big.

 

Baths, he decides, are supposed to be calming. Something has clearly gone wrong, here.

 

He hops up onto the stool by the sink, slowly turning to face the mirror. An unbroken layer of condensation coats it, and something echoes, hollow, in his heart. He drags a fist across it, without pattern. Examines his weary reflection.

 

If it was any other cycle, there would be no way Davenport would be allowed to fall asleep in the bath. He would have been interrupted by now, absolutely. Someone would need to use the room, or else there would be some new crisis for him to deal with. A memory springs forward. Smoke pouring through the open door as Lup leans against the frame, nonchalant. Magnus’ high pitched screams in the background, with Merle’s panicked responses.

 

“Cap’n, no offense, but I think your ship is a little bit on fire.”

 

(“Use a spell, Merle! Make water or something!”)

 

(“Stop pressuring me! I’m tryin!”)

 

Back then, Davenport had been furious. After enough time had passed, he found it funny, looking back at the disaster almost fondly. A memory of his crew, and the colour they add to his life. The faded greys and blues of the memory, now that Lup is gone. Now that he lives on this ship with five ghosts, hardly ever seeing them, talking to them less.

 

Maybe he’ll ask Merle if he wants to play a card game.

 

Davenport leaves the bathroom for the last time, empty.

 

And so it remains for twelve years.

 

No matter how you frame it, there is nothing glamorous about a bathroom.

 

A bathroom shared between seven people is chaos.

 

The chaos is even worse with, like, thirteen people and two dogs.

 

Carey, Magnus, Merle, Taako, Ren, and Mavis all crowd around the mirror, brushing and washing and posing. The air is thick with steam, and towels are heaped in piles all over the floor. Angus stands off to the side, cleaning his glasses as Johan the dog thumps his legs over and over with a wagging tail.

 

Magnus turns away from the mirror, giving Johan a really good scratch on the head. The dog’s mouth falls open, tongue lolling out to the side. It’s his happiest smile, and pure love swells in Magnus’ chest. He squats down, rubbing Johan all over the neck and sides and ears. From this angle, he has a good view of Angus, who holds his glasses up to the light, nods, and carefully places them on his nose.

 

“Johan, lick his glasses,” Magnus whispers, leaning in close to his dog’s ear.

 

Angus looks at Johan, a little nervously. Johan has no idea what that means, but he’s _just_ well-trained enough to make Angus wonder.

 

Magnus jumps back to his feet, and Johan dashes forward a few steps, excited.

 

“Ready for the day, Ango?”

 

Angus looks away from Johan, and breaks into a trusting grin.

 

“Of course, sir! I’m the most excited person that ever did live! It’s been so wonderful to get to see the Starblaster, and Ms. Lup made such an amazing breakfast, and now we’re going to go on a fun-adventure!”

 

Magnus puts his fists on his hips, sizing Angus up. He’s grown a lot in the last year, but it’s all height. He’s still probably just as light as he always was, but stretched out a little. Perfect.

 

“Welp, we’ve gotta start the day off right,” says Magnus. In one movement, he scoops Angus up and holds him high up in the air. Angus lets out a frightened yelp, not unlike the kind that dogs make.

 

“Wh… what are you doing, sir?”

 

Magnus places Angus on his shoulders, stepping towards the mirror, pushing a spot in between Taako and Merle. The bottom of the mirror has been wiped off, but the top is still foggy from the last shower.

 

“Write us a message up there,” says Magnus. “Make it good, okay?”

 

Angus’ lanky legs swing unsteadily as Magnus leans forward. Angus is definitely too big for this, but Magnus is strong.

 

“Watch it,” Merle warns, ducking out of the way of a rogue kick. Angus splutters an apology, before reaching out a finger to begin his message.

 

Magnus moves with him as he writes, shuffling Taako, Ren, and Mavis off to the right, with some minor complaining.

 

“Okay, that’s all of it!”

 

Magnus lifts Angus off his shoulders and back down. Angus puffs out his chest proudly, letting them all read it.

 

“Start every day with a clear mind and a full heart,” reads Carey. She nods once.

 

“It’s from Caleb Cleveland,” Angus explains. “I think it’s an important reminder.”

 

“I like to start every day with clear bowels and a full stomach,” says Merle, breaking into a guffaw.

 

Taako makes a face. Mavis huffs out a breath, then turns to Angus, face a little pink after her dad’s weird joke.

 

“I like those books too,” she says. Angus lights up.

 

“They’re my very favourite!”

 

They launch into a conversation that Taako watches, amused.

 

“Who invited all these nerds?” he asks, sliding his toothbrush back into the holder in the section he’s taped off and labelled “Taako”.

 

“Hey, don’t talk about Ren like that,” says Merle.

 

“Wha?”

 

Ren jolts to attention, from where she’d been absently combing her hair too much.

 

“Rubber and glue, old man,” says Taako, giving Ren a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “Anyway, I think we’re done here."

 

The bathroom empties out, and the day begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, if you’re keeping up with this fic but don’t have it bookmarked, you might have missed the last chapter :’). I was dumb and uploaded while AO3 was having technical difficulties, so it didn’t go back to the top of the most recent. Thank you to everyone who did see it, your reviews and such mean the world to me. 
> 
> Anyway it’s been a while since I updated. Things have been real holly jolly over here. Here’s a shorter one before I go back to eating way too many baked goods. ALSO. I went to PodCon and it was the literal greatest weekend I’ve ever had. I’ve never been somewhere with so many incredible people in one place, enjoying such amazing stuff. I met all three Smirl sisters, and ran into Justin in the hallway, and didn’t even throw up! All that happened was my knees shook a lot basically. They’re all so kind, you guys. God. I will never stop gushing about how good this con was. Anyway.


	6. The Kitchen/Galley

Davenport is startled to attention, looking up from painting the Starblaster’s hull. A glob of paint rolls down as what appears to be a small army thunders towards his ship. The people are massive, kicking up dust as they approach. Davenport jumps down, instinctively defensive of the Starblaster. As the crowd grows closer, he realizes he has no actual plan, and lets his paintbrush fall limply to his side.

 

“Erm… excuse me?” he clears his throat. “Excuse me! Can I help you?”

 

The crowd slows, about thirty people hovering in front of the gangway, eyeing each other with confusion. No one seems prepared to respond. They all hold packages of various sizes.

 

“What is all this?” Davenport tries, lacing his words with as much authority as he can muster.

 

A half-orc man holding an enormous box under one arm grunts something, then is immediately flung to the side before he can begin his explanation. A thin arm shoves past him, followed by a pair of grinning elves that Davenport instantly recognizes. Taako and Lup, his new hires. Chefs, wizards, crewmates. Their rather severe reputation had been brought to his attention already. Time to meet this one head on.

 

“Hey there, Davenport,” says one of them, the girl one, Lup. She salutes him jovially.

 

“We noticed your kitchen was sad and wrong,” says Taako, folding his arms. “But oh, look, it’s everything we’ll ever need.”

 

There is general agreement in the crowd.

 

“We’ve already stocked some provisions,” says Davenport, warily. There is no way all of this stuff is going to fit on board.

 

“Adorable,” says Taako, smirking at Lup. She nudges him in the ribs.

 

“Look, captain. You hired us on as chefs. Let us work our magic. Let us play around in this… creative space, here.”

 

She gestures to the Starblaster. Davenport sighs.

 

“Fit what you can, I guess.”

 

The twins fist bump, both at the same time, without looking.

 

Davenport dodges out of the way as everyone filters on-board the ship, twins bringing up the rear. He hears some loud crashing noises, flinching as things thump and scrape in the distance. He’s considering following the terrible noises down the hall when a box of instant noodles flies out of the window, nearly hitting him square in the skull. He walks towards them, scooping them up defensively. He _likes_ these noodles, dammit.

 

He’ll bring them home for now, then. At least they won’t go bad. Not before he gets back, anyway.

 

A few more boxes of other rations join the noodles, and Davenport collects them all in a sad pile. He tells himself that at least whatever they’re plotting in there is bound to be good. They had had a very impressive resume, demonstrating expertise in cooking as well as magic.

 

It doesn’t take long for Davenport to learn that they live up to all of the hype. There is no topping the twins’ special brand of cooking. Every meal is made a special occasion, gorgeous smells drifting through the air, spices that make your mouth water with one whiff, the sizzle of ingredients frying perfectly and evenly, the distant chatter of the twins, a well-oiled machine perfected through years of honing their craft. 

 

Davenport can't believe how much those two spoil the rest of the crew. He himself changes from a life on instant noodles to a new man with a new palate. Every day is flaky baked things and melty gourmet cheeses and seared meats and seasonal vegetables topped in whatever a _reduction_ is supposed to be. In the first year or so of their travels, Taako and Lup somehow manage to cook every day without ever repeating a meal.

 

“That’s how you survive, out here on the road,” Lup insists, leaning over to toss some spices into whatever Taako is stirring.

 

“Keep ‘em guessing,” Taako adds, quickly sampling Lup’s creation. “More butter, darling.”

 

Limbs fly. Feet shuffle. It’s almost a dance, and the others like to hover around in the kitchen (or _galley,_ as Davenport says) and just watch sometimes. Satisfyingly hypnotic. Their crewmates learn exactly how to stay out of the way when the twins are doing their thing.

 

“I really liked that weird beef,” says Magnus, leaning over the table, as close as he dares. It’s cycle two, and things are starting to settle, against all odds.

 

“You’re gonna have to give me a bit more than that,” says Lup, banging a wooden spoon against the edge of a bowl.

 

“It was like…”

 

Magnus makes some vague, cylindrical hand motions. Lup raises an eyebrow, glancing at Taako.

 

“Beef Wellington?” Taako asks, glancing up only momentarily from his stirring.

 

“Yeah, that one!” says Magnus. “With those little potatoes! So good.”

 

“Wow, good call, bro,” says Lup, pausing her poking at the stove to raise an eyebrow in her brother’s direction. Taako just shrugs.

 

“It’s actually… I’ve been picking that one up. My languages are now common, draconic, elvish, dwarvish, goblin, mongoose, and dumbass.”

 

Magnus gasps.

 

“Yeah, well my languages are common and... mean… guy…!”

 

There’s a pause. Something hisses on the stove.

 

“You’ll get him next time,” says Lucretia, patting Magnus on the arm. She sits at the table next to him, solving some crossword puzzles with a thick red pen.

 

“Anyway, I’ll keep that in mind,” says Taako, a little softly.

 

The next day, the twins serve beef wellington again. Eventually, all of the crew’s favourite dishes are repeated. Creamy soups for Lucretia. Hearty meats for Magnus. Crunchy, raw stuff for Merle. Pasta for Davenport. Barry seems grateful for anything dairy-free. Taako and Lup even allow their own favourites to sneak in there a few times.

 

Eventually, as the twins open up to the others more, the kitchen becomes a primo hangout spot. It’s a good place to find them anytime anyone wants to talk. It’s a good bet for finding any of the crew, actually. Breakfasts are more of a free-for-all, but lunches and dinners are some of the best times for them all to just get together and decompress. In the off hours, there’s always some sort of snack or sweet or hot drink. It’s hard to resist a good hot drink.

 

After about a decade of creating his space, Taako bursts into the galley, breath labored with emotional distress. He scans the room in a second, just long enough to see that his sister is, in fact, not here either. He sighs his most dramatic sigh, eyes locking on the only person actually in the galley: a concerned-looking Barry, notebook open on the table and mug raised halfway to his face.

 

“Barold!” Taako says, slamming his unoccupied hand down on the table. His other is clutching his eyeliner and a pocket mirror.

 

“Uh… Taako?” Barry says, gently setting the mug down.

 

“Where the FUCK is Lup?”

 

Barry blinks.

 

“Um… should I know the answer to that?”

 

Useless. This dude is totally useless. Unfortunately, he’s also the only other person Taako has seen on the ship at all this morning. Afternoon. So he’d slept in a bit. Whatever. As if that gave the rest of the crew the right to just wander off without him.

 

“Hey. Hey. Hey, Barry… this? You see this?”

 

Taako gestures to his face, frowning deeply.

 

“Um.”

 

“The eyeliner, Barry. It’s a bad eyeliner day. I cannot get these fucking lines even, and I’m about to lose my shit, kemosabe.”

 

Barry stays silent, frozen in place. Taako pulls out a chair and slinks down across from him, stretching out limp across the table.

 

“I need to find Lup, because she’s some kind of eyeliner magician. I can’t bear to face the day until she heals me of my terrible illness, Bar-OLD.”

 

Barry fidgets with the edge of his notebook.

 

“Uh… I could do it for you? If you want.”

 

Taako’s ear, the one that isn’t pressed against the table, perks up.

 

“You yanking my chain here, broski?” he mumbles into his arm.

 

Barry lets out a long sigh.

 

“Uh, well. You know I’m a necromancer. And I was… a teenager, once. You can put two and two together here.”

 

Taako’s head rolls to face Barry, settling on his steepled hands. His mood lifts all the way up at what is being implied, here.

 

Taako and Barry stare at each other for a while, the unspoken hanging between them as Taako wiggles his eyebrows with glee. Barry avoids looking at him, sipping his drink way too many times in one go. Eventually, he’s forced to put it back down.

 

“You know what I mean,” Barry sighs.

 

“Oh yeah, totally. I just wanna hear you say it.”

 

Barry takes one last, careful sip of his drink, sighing deeply, then begins, avoiding Taako’s eyes at all costs.

 

“I was… I guess an emo kid. Goth. Whatever. I wore a lot of eyeliner. And, like, black. Lots of black.”

 

Taako bursts into laughter, kicking back in his chair so it teeters dangerously. Every mental image is just so damn good. Barry in eyeliner. Barry with spiked hair and a bad attitude. Barry in… dare he dream? Black jeans. Barry Blackjeans, fuck that was good.

 

“Are we doing this or what?” says Barry, voice strained.

 

“Just let me… let me wipe away the tears. God, this is a good moment. We’re sharing a good moment right now. Tell me you feel it too.”

 

Barry responds by yanking the eyeliner out of Taako’s slackened grip. Taako composes himself immediately, leaning forward and batting his eyelashes.

 

Barry looks like he’s in physical pain as he uncaps the eyeliner, leans forward, presses a thumb beside Taako’s eye just so, and begins. Taako fights not to flinch at the coldness of the pen, and fights not to laugh at how bonkers this entire situation is.

 

Barry sits back down quickly, capping the eyeliner and rolling it back to Taako.

 

“There. All even.”

 

He flips to a random page in his notebook, and Taako takes a quick peek at his makeup with his pocket mirror. Sure enough, it’s flawless.

 

“Holy shit, my dude. You must’ve been a pretty legendary emo kid.”

 

“I… well, I racked up a lot of store credit at Fantasy Hot Topic, if you need me to… paint you a picture.”

 

Taako grins, pushing his chair back onto two legs.

 

“Augh, that’s golden. I wish you had some evidence. A mix tape or studs or something, so _good_.”

 

Barry glances up at him, suddenly tense, and it takes Taako a beat too long to realize he’s crossed a line.

 

“Yeah, well, I don’t have that,” says Barry, curling the edge of his notebook paper. “Or, well, anything.”

 

Taako has never been great at sympathizing with people. He’s never really had a reason to, before. People have been shitty to him, so he’s felt nothing in return. That’s how these things work. Taako’s only tie to the plane he was born in is living on the ship with him right now. Off somewhere. Not doing her goddamn job as his eyeliner fixer.

 

But Taako has known Barry for years now. Explored with him. Learned shit with him. Eaten meals and played cards and traded stories with him. He’s a good dude, and he, along with everyone else on the crew, had had something back home that meant something to him. Something he thought he was going to return to.

 

Something twists in Taako’s gut, and he hates it. He tries to chill out with some breathing, but no dice.

 

“Okay, listen,” says Taako, making a decidedly Very Bad Decision. “I’ve never told anyone this. And I’m never going to say it again, ever. No matter what. Anyway, I’m like a hundred and something years old, and I have no idea if we’re counting whatever whack shit is happening in this ship, but either way I’ve been around long enough to have had my fair share of embarrassing phases.”

 

Barry smiles a weak smile.

 

“Lup too,” Taako adds. Because if she isn’t going to be there to help him with his eyeliner, he has no problem throwing her under the proverbial bus.

 

The corner of Barry’s mouth quirks upwards.

 

“We travelled a lot, as kids. Always changing places, mixing up that scenery. And we spent a solid… probably fourteen years? Just changing ourselves up every time. It was BAD, Barold. I spent a whole year clipping shit into my hair and saying that I was so ‘random’. I wrote some really terrible poetry. I got really into this comic thing and wore, like, horns? And you’d better fucking believe I did the goth thing.”

 

Barry is fully smiling now, hands clasped around his mug.

 

“Oh yeah, and Lup did all this too. She once straight-up passed out because her black corset with red ribbing was tied too tight, and all she cared about afterwards was that she chipped one of her nails, since she was trying to grow them out super long and file them into points.”

 

Barry laughs, his face softening. He swirls his drink around, then takes a slow sip. Taako senses something he’s not quite ready to deal with yet.

 

“Anyway, now that that’s out there, no one will believe you. And all of these awful fashion things? We were cool enough to make them work. We owned that shit. And I KNOW that, because we never once got kicked out of a caravan for looking shitty. It was always for acting shitty.”

 

Barry frowns again.

 

“That sounds… pretty rough, for a couple of kids.”

 

Taako waves his hand in the air.

 

“It’s all good. Water under the bridge. Anyway, this looks incredible.”

 

He gestures to his eyeliner, then stands up from the table.

 

“See you later,” Taako says, turning to walk away. Something is bubbling in the pit of his stomach, and he definitely doesn’t feel like dealing with it this time. This was the kind of dirty laundry he only ever aired in the presence of Lup, and like hell was he going to dump it on Barry fucking Bluejeans. As if.

 

And yet, he still crumbles a bit at the sound of Barry’s voice, putting up the wall between them again.

 

“Right.”

 

Barry learns to not take the twins too seriously. After years of closing himself off, he starts to spend more and more time with them. Naturally, this means a lot more time in the kitchen. In one cycle, Lup dies early, and Taako picks on Barry mercilessly until he stops trying to help cook. Taako chops a lot of onions, maybe more than he ever actually needs, and Barry sits to the side, pretending his own tears are also from the onions. When Lup comes back, he’s learned something about them both.

 

The twins pick on him because they like him, and even let him in on the jokes, sometimes. They go on long tangents that mean absolutely nothing, and clip their sentences short when the words are painful or emotional. Hardships seem to roll off of them, so Barry learns to read between the lines. He spends more time with them than maybe anyone else, preferring to study and eat and relax with at least Lup by his side.

 

On the day he tells her he loves her, they have maple glazed salmon. A week after that, Taako puts them on blast for making out in the kitchen, right in front of the pulled pork he’d been working on since the morning. He has to institute some strict rules about germs and “general yuck factor”, while Lup leans casually against the counter and Barry blushes and prays for swift death.

 

Taako is _very_ serious about the quality of his meals, long after his coworkers morph into family, like clay under two shining suns. Taako knows that he could serve them whatever he could boil up in ten minutes, and they’d still be grateful. This makes him work even harder, somehow. Over the years, Lup starts to spend more time studying magic, becoming the perfect little lethal weapon that Taako always knew she could be. He’s very proud of her. He’s a little ticked off that he has to do her work for her some nights.

 

About one in three nights Taako is left like this, practically a blur of movement as he chops and sizzles and pours. On this particular cycle fifty-three night, his assistant is Magnus. Magnus is one of Taako’s favourite assistants. The dude is super easy to impress. Like, Taako is already very impressive. And when Taako cranks up the theatrics around Magnus, the dude loses his shit.

 

“You’re probably wondering how I get this right every time,” says Taako, adding a few drops of soy sauce to the pan. It’s a stir fry tonight, easy and effective.

 

“You mean the measuring thing?” asks Magnus, eyes wide as he watches Taako mix the weird new vegetables and meat around.

 

“Yes the measuring thing, obviously. Watch.”

 

Taako pours a bit of soy sauce into his hand, then drops it into a measuring spoon. Sure enough, it’s a perfect tablespoon. Magnus actually fucking _claps,_ and Taako grins.

 

“Get me some more of those grey carrot abominations,” says Taako, gesturing to their vegetable pile.

 

Magnus nods, carefully selecting one of the questionable things. Carrot is the best they can do to describe it, although it’s way shorter and squishier and tastes like the vegetable that God forgot.

 

Magnus chops it handily, the only task Taako lets him do in his kitchen. Taako slides the cutting board down towards himself, and lifts it up above the pan.

 

“Now watch this one, compadre,” he says. He tilts the cutting board with one hand, and waves the other over the greyish chunks, transfiguring them into proper, orange carrots as they fall into the pan.

 

Magnus cheers.

 

Taako could get used to this.

 

Everyone attempts, at some point, to help Taako out in the kitchen. The Starblaster kitchen is still pretty firmly twin territory, but they go through enough cycles away from the ship to learn to fend for themselves. Eventually, Taako gets more lenient, and lets other people do their own thing. On nights where he has a plan, though, everyone other than Lup had better stay out of his way. The two work together flawlessly, moving as one, as if on instinct. Their meals are always the absolute best.

 

Merle, on the other hand, cooks stuff that tastes like horse shit. That’s when the food makes it to the plate at all. At the moment, his food is a little bit on fire.

 

“Aww shhiiiit...”

 

Merle tries desperately to produce some water, but his brain is all scrambled with panic. The fire stretches higher up to the ceiling, and he’s just about written off the whole ship when someone comes up behind him and slams a pot lid down, snuffing out the flame.

 

“What are you doing?” Davenport says, face red and hand shaking as he lets go of the lid.

 

Merle just stands in a sort of dumbfounded silence.

 

“Besides setting my ship on fire, I mean.”

 

In truth, this fire thing isn’t unusual for Davenport. The Starblaster has been on fire many, many times. Living with Lup also means living with a healthy amount of fear.

 

Living without her is much worse.

 

Cycle seventy-one is a series of small towns that have had absolutely no contact with one another. This is due to the fact that each town is surrounded by thick, insurmountable forest, which contains creatures more lethal than anyone was prepared to deal with. The crew has spent much of this year carrying messages back and forth between the towns, fostering communication and happiness and hope.

 

The light of creation had landed in the forest, of course. Lup, Taako, and Magnus had set out to retrieve it, and only Magnus had come back. The light hovers just a few rooms over as Merle cooks, a bittersweet reminder of what they’ve sacrificed, and what good they’ve done in return.

 

As the shock of the accidental fire dies down, Merle finds his voice again.

 

“I uh… I have no idea what happened. I was just cooking some pasta and I…”

 

“You were cooking pasta in a pan?” Davenport interrupts. “You… Merle, you know you have to boil pasta, right?”

 

Merle’s face scrunches in a troubled sort of way.

 

“What can I say, I like Pan,” he mutters, and Davenport has to physically walk out of the room to collect himself.

 

When he re-enters, Barry is in tow, with some papers crumpled in his hands and a pencil tucked behind his ear.

 

“You cooking something in here?” he asks.

 

Merle gives a noncommittal grunt.

 

“Smells like smoke,” says Barry. His voice is low and scratchy, the way it gets when he’s dead tired and about to pass out.

 

“Well, this is what I get for trying to do something nice for once,” says Merle, exasperated. “Maybe if I had a little help around here we wouldn’t be eating hot dogs all the damn time!”

 

“Are we discussing hot dogs?” asks Lucretia, poking her head in from around the door frame. “Because my thoughts on that subject are somewhere between ‘hell no’ and ‘please not again, I’m begging you, we can’t keep doing this.’”

 

Magnus pokes around the other side of the door frame, cartoonishly.

 

“I’m so hungry I could eat a… so hungry…” He stops, frowning. “You know, I reflected on this joke and it might be in poor taste. Anyway, no hot dogs please.”

 

“We have to have some real food in here,” murmurs Barry, dropping his papers on the counter and stepping up on a stool for a really good look at the pantry.

 

Lucretia comes up beside him, and starts unloading pouches of spices and dried goods. The twins’ method of sorting things makes basically no sense.

 

“Hey, there’s curry paste in here. That’s like… you just add water or something, right? I could go for some curry,” says Barry, pulling out a pouch and triggering a waterfall of garlic cloves.

 

“Good news,” says Lucretia, thumping her hand on a dusty bag. “We’ve got rice.”

 

“Bad news,” says Magnus, kneeling in front of the fantasy refrigerator. “No meat, no veggies.”

 

“I could cut up some hot dogs and put it on there,” says Merle.

 

“Please don’t say that,” says Davenport.

 

There’s some more shuffling as they try to find any ingredients that can possibly be put together in any way.

 

“We had tofu somewhere, right?” asks Barry. “You can throw some spices on there and make it sort of like chicken. Lup showed me once, I think I can…”

 

“Merle threw out the tofu,” says Lucretia.

 

“I did not!” says Merle.

 

“You said it looked like ‘weird butter’.”

 

“Bad news, you guys, I threw out the tofu.”

 

After a few minutes, they decide to at least try to get some rice going. It’s something so simple, which they’ve all definitely done before, that has completely fallen out of busy minds over decades of being so well taken care of. Barry is put in charge by association to Lup, and he blinks a lot as he works.

 

After about fifteen minutes, Magnus notices Barry’s vacant expression, and decides maybe he should take over to fluff the rice. He lifts the lid, sticks a fork in it, and can barely get it out again. The whole thing has congealed into one, solid mass.

 

On the other end of the kitchen, Davenport and Merle are peeling a mysterious fruit that is apparently all peel. They just keep cutting at it, and it’s pretty much all gone by the time Davenport throws his knife down in exasperation.

 

“This is...” Davenport groans. “Where’s Lucretia? We need… someone competent.”

 

As if on command, Lucretia walks into the room with an armful of paper bags.

 

“Takeout,” she says, simply.

 

When the next cycle starts, everyone is mercilessly put on blast by two very amused twins. They agree to try to let everyone cook more, though. For the crew's own well-being, they have to relearn how to cook some stuff.

 

Barry, Lucretia, and Magnus are pretty fast learners. Taako has never seen himself as a teacher, really, but he’s pretty much just good at everything so it works out. Merle is disgustingly content to eat nothing but cereal and hot dogs on the nights that they fend for themselves. Davenport is in a league of his own.

 

Their beloved captain was born and raised in an upper-class household, where the focus was always more on learning and studying than on anything practical. Dude can barely make ice.

 

Lup dedicates a good chunk of cycle seventy-four to teaching Davenport to cook. They land in a world populated by only animals which, like, done that. They’re not even talking animals. They catch up with the light of creation after a few months, and Lup is left with lots of time to start a new project.

 

“You just gave us all salmonella again, Captain,” says Lup, lazily flicking her wand towards the countertop, just in the nick of time. A cutting board slides under the cabbage as Davenport plunks it down.

 

“You cut chicken there earlier. Bad call.”

 

Davenport flounders around with the knife, flustered.

 

“Right. Uh, sorry.”

 

“Tell it to our colons.”

 

Davenport frowns, and holds the knife over the cabbage. He’s just about to bring it down when Lup stops him again.

 

“You trying to add your fingers to our meal there, fella?”

 

Davenport scowls, trying to gain back any shred of his Captain-ly dignity.

 

“Show me again, then.”

 

Lup plucks the knife from his hands, and slices the cabbage into tiny pieces in ten seconds flat. She might have a bit of a problem with not sacrificing flair for good demonstration practices.

 

She steps away, grinning a lopsided grin, as Davenport hops back onto his stool, checks the broth, and slides the cabbage in. He pauses, as if he’s expecting her to interrupt. But, no, it’s not that hard to put some cabbage in some broth.

 

It’s shocking to Lup that someone so smart can be so clueless about something this simple. She’s met a lot of people in her life who assume they’re smarter than her, which usually just makes it that much easier to take them for all they’re worth. It’s a weird reversal, living with all of these people she cares about so deeply. Davenport is willing to listen to her expertise. She wants to see him succeed. He just makes it very difficult, sometimes.

 

Lup gives the broth a stir, and samples it.

 

“Not bad so far. Keep it up. If you want to start thickening it up you can.”

 

Davenport looks almost panicked at this freedom of choice.

 

“Sh… should I? You want me to add something?”

 

Lup shrugs.

 

“It’s up to you.”

 

Davenport huffs out a breath, mouth trembling with sheer concentration.

 

“Yeah, okay, I’ll thicken it up a bit. That’s… what do I add? Milk?”

 

Lup grins a dangerous grin.

 

“Davenport, if you mess up my man’s tummy one more time I’m going to ban you from this kitchen forever.”

 

“R… right. No milk.”

 

Lup reaches into the cupboard, and slides him some corn starch.

 

“Do you want me to just write this shit down for you? I’m not always going to be here, you know.”

 

Davenport grimaces, stirring some corn starch into the broth.

 

“Hopefully we won’t lose both you and Taako again. I’ll do my best to learn, but it’s good to always have at least one of you around.”

 

Lup leans against the countertop, folding her arms across her chest. She doesn’t think he means to be so flippant about her death, or the death of her dear brother. Still. She wasn’t even talking about death in the first place.

 

“I meant later on, actually,” she says. “Like… when we get out of all this.”

 

She kind of gestures with her hand.

 

“Oh.”

 

Davenport’s stirring slows a bit. An uneasy silence falls over the two of them.

 

It’s a weird sort of balancing act, the talk of a future beyond their little spaceship. It’s what they’ve been working towards all along: a steady home, a happy future, a safe life for everyone who has ever existed, ever. To stop the enemy that threatens to consume them with every step, every word, every flight into places unknown. They’ve been fighting for this every day for seventy-four _fucking_ years now.

 

But, also, the thought of what comes next is kind of a bummer.

 

If this stops, they’ll stop adventuring together. They’ll part ways, probably. Lup will stay with Taako, naturally. Barry will go back to aging, which is a thought she’s stubbornly avoided for years, since it makes her feel kind of like her insides are boiling.

 

“You’re boiling, captain. Bring it down a bit,” she says, quieter now.

 

“Right.”

 

Davenport turns down the heat on the broth, stirring more quickly as it bubbles and splashes.

 

“And the meat?”

 

“Right!”

 

Davenport practically falls off of his stool as he leans over to check on the chicken, sizzling in a separate pan. It’s very possibly starting to burn, but Davenport rescues it pretty handily as smoke rises and Lup laughs to herself.

 

“What would you do without me?”

 

“Probably die of starvation?” he suggests, gruffly.

 

Four years later, the issue of losing Lup is momentarily put from the crew’s long list of things to worry about. Lup is a lich, now, and she is incredible at it, and she’s always with them. Barry, too, commits this sort of necromantic taboo, and stops death in its tracks.

 

Lich Lup and lich Barry are basically the same as regular Lup and Barry, but with a lot more listlessness. The lack of the basic pleasures of life, like eating and sleeping and snuggling, leave them bored and restless a lot of the time. When Lup is restless, things get broken. When Barry is restless, he clings to the rest of the crew, desperate for conversation, or any sort of social contact, really.

 

“So the turkey should be just about ready, and then we just have to mix it all together,” Lucretia explains, scraping ground turkey off of her spatula against the edge of the pan.

 

“I love this stuff, Lucretia. If I could smell it, it’d probably smell real good.”

 

It’s cycle eighty-six, and Barry tragically died in a search for the light of creation. Lup and Barry volunteer to go after the light a lot more, now, since they basically get two chances to grab it.

 

“Are you sure this isn’t, like…”

 

“Totally depressing? Yeah, it is,” says Barry, hovering over the pan. If he had a face, it would probably be a sad one, Lucretia thinks.

 

“I was going to suggest ‘cruel’, but, yes, also depressing,” she says, sliding the spatula through the meat again.

 

“You know, I think you make the best chili on the ship Lucretia. And that’s a big deal.”

 

Lucretia knows that it’s definitely high praise to have her cooking compared to Lup and Taako’s like this. She also knows that her chili is the best, indisputably.

 

Lucretia moves to mix her ingredients together, smiling softly.

 

“Barry, you’re a little in the way.”

 

“Oh, shit, yeah. Sorry, I’m still working on the old physical form.”

 

Barry backs up a bit, and Lucretia gets to work on the beans, sauces, and spices.

 

Lucretia’s time with Barry is always quite calm. They barely ever talk about anything beyond the surface-level. What their plans are for the next few days. Funny stories of the rest of the crew. Chili recipes. It’s quite nice, to have a break from the huge personalities they usually deal with. Lucretia loves them all to pieces, but sometimes it’s nice to take a little space for herself. She feels that Barry understands this better than anyone, and she’s so grateful for it.

 

“Y’know, it’s just a week until the next cycle. You could save your buddy Barry some of that. It’d still be good, right?” Barry says. He’s been drifting closer, by some sort of sad habit.

 

“For someone with such a bad stomach, you like to eat very dangerously.” Lucretia says. “Why don’t I just make you a fresh batch? Besides, we have Magnus to feed tonight. And Fisher.”

 

“You’re gonna give your chili to the fish?” Barry says, aghast. “He doesn’t even like normal food!”

 

Lucretia shrugs.

 

“Well, he has to eat something. We’re still not quite sure… what.”

 

“Thing doesn’t even like Lup’s cooking,” says Barry. “He’s a lost cause.”

 

“But he’s _our_ lost cause,” says Lucretia.

 

Barry snorts.

 

Luckily, the crew has always had a certain tendency to fight for lost causes. When the others can’t protect Fisher, Lucretia takes it upon herself. When she can’t do it alone, anymore, they arrive just in time to help her. Just as they always have.

 

The world is safe, now. The seven of them are happy, and whole, and better than ever.

 

The Starblaster’s kitchen, however, is a nightmare.

 

“Look, Taako. Astroturf,” says Lup.

 

She pulls a bag out of the fridge. It’s impossible to tell what was once in it, through the green and fuzzy mold pressed against all of the edges. 

 

“Yeah, miss me with that one, sis.”

 

Magnus actually yells at the sight of it. Mookie bolts forward to get a closer look.

 

“That’s awesome!” he shouts, poking at it. Mavis rushes forward, babbling something about hand washing, and Lup chucks the stuff into a garbage bag that’s already stuffed full of expired and rotten and just generally gross food.

 

“Davenport, you need to get some actual edible food, my man,” says Taako, sliding another funky-looking jar into the trash bag.

 

“I… I’m fine,” he says, defensively, from his watchful corner of the kitchen.

 

“Please tell me there’s something you guys can work with here,” says Merle. “It’s way past my dinner time.”

 

Lup flicks a hand at him, telling him to go away or be patient.

 

“We’re gonna work this out, because we’re incredible,” says Taako. “But can you get off my butt for like two seconds?”

 

“We’ve got tomatoes,” says Lup, pulling a few fresh tomatoes from the crisper and rolling them in her hands. “We’re like a tenth of the way to something great, here.”

 

“I found pasta, ma’am!” calls Angus, standing on the counter, elbows-deep in the pantry.

 

“Nice!” says Taako, selecting a few of the less-questionable things he sees. It pays to be really, really good at transmutation.

 

“Okay, Agnes, you can stay. Everyone else get out.”

 

There’s some general grumbling as the kitchen clears out, and Taako straightens up, stretching his arms out, ready for some cooking. He and Lup settle into their usual rhythm, getting a really good bolognese on while Angus passes them the spices they ask for. The kid picks up on their sorting method in no time, being as smart as he is. This is why it’s good to keep him around.

 

It feels right, cooking with Lup again. Taako finishes up one thing, chopping or crushing or tasting, and passes it on without looking, Lup’s hands always there to continue on, without instruction. What was once a shattered bowl, or a burned ingredient, a moment of confusion dismissed as a lapse in judgement, is finally back on track.

 

Taako is a fantastic chef when flying solo. He spent years on the road, just proving this. In his _Sizzle it Up_ years, Taako’s whole deal was proving to the world how excellent he was at cooking, which was definitely a good time. But cooking has always been more than just a selfish thing, for him. On the road, he loved to see the smiles on the faces of the people who sampled his stuff. Cooking, to him, is a way to connect to people. Cheesy, sure, but it's real.

 

There’s no one Taako has a deeper connection with than Lup. He has friends, sure. Family, people who mean the world to him. He has Kravitz, now, and his heart kind of swells up and his brain gets stupid when he thinks about that. But Lup is a part of Taako in a way that no one else can ever be. He’s been with her from the second they both blinked into existence, and he’s shared everything with her since then. Being away from her was weird, and it was wrong, and he’s still mad about it. He works out his anger through jokes, and rad magic, and cooking.

 

Despite all of the bullshit his feelings have been up to lately, though, Taako has to admit it feels great to be back in the kitchen of the Starblaster. He’s spent more time in this kitchen than anywhere else. This ship is the only home he’s ever had, and he feels so, so comfortable here, doing what he does best with Lup by his side.

 

“Taako, if you don’t cut back on the salt you’re gonna ruin everything,” Lup sings, batting at his knuckles until he puts his salt shaker away.

 

Taako gives the sauce a stir, watching carefully. Yeah, it was gonna be a good meal tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been relistening to TAZ and like a)that’s some good shit and b)why didn’t the TAZ wiki tell me Barry already had a canonical family??? Now I look like a FOOL.  
> Next order of business, Merle’s cooking and Davenport’s fridge are based on true to life events that had to do with staying with my grandfather over Christmas break. Poppa you are diabetic, please, you have to eat a vegetable sometimes.  
> Next next thing, please catch my maxfun show references in this chapter, there are two of them and you will win the prize of me thinking you are a Very Cool Person.  
> Lastly, this fic is at 69 kudos (haha nice) so if you hit the button that brings it to 70 just know that you are committing to bringing on 350 more friends to make that number cool again. (Just kidding I love you thank you for kudos and comments)  
> The Lab is next, prepare for a BLUPJEANS STORM, MY FRIENDS.


	7. The Laboratory

The Halfling woman grunts as she heaves a final box of supplies onto a huge pile. She stands back to admire her work, hands on her hips, and huffs out an annoyed breath.

 

“Do you seriously think they’re going to use all this stuff?” she asks, adjusting the bottom of a pile with her foot.

 

“Not at all,” says her coworker, a young elvish man with round glasses sliding down his nose after a hard day’s work.

 

They pause for a few moments to collect themselves, then grudgingly start to unpack, complaining as they go.

 

“Why in the world would they need eight different highlighter colours?”

 

“This _entire box_ is only pens!”

 

“And this one’s paperclips!”

 

“Hey, someone from the kitchen just threw all the mugs they didn’t want down here!”

 

“Lazy son of a…”

 

“What the hell are they gonna put in all of these binders? You’d think they were going to be away for a _hundred years_!”

The office of the Starblaster is a widened, L-shaped space left to fill in the gaps around some engine components. Naturally, the brightest minds at the IPRE would need a good place to work and to study, and the designers of the ship spared no expenses in stocking the room to the brim with everything anyone could need on a research expedition.

 

Tools and mechanical pieces, scales and sliders, containers measuring in every unit possible. Office supplies that smell like box store and something new. An enormous display cabinet takes up half of the L, armed with industrial clips, securing glassware safely through flight.  A large, wooden desk in the centre, with more chairs than can fit around it.

 

The highlighters are a big hit. Lucretia spends full afternoons just organizing old research by data type and time frame, colouring seemingly random phrases in blues and greens and yellows. Magnus takes pink as his own pretty early on, and all of his briefing notes are swirled with highlights of it. Barry makes everything important orange, because apparently it’s a colour that triggers memory. Merle doodles flowers on the covers of all of their binders when no one’s around to tell him to stop.

 

Pens are a hot commodity as well, and aggressively so. The crew is down to about five pens in total by cycle two, and there’s blood sport to claim them until they get to a world where they can buy more. Lucretia keeps two on her at all times, even in her sleep. Davenport does his best to label one for himself with masking tape. Things get shuffled around anyway.

 

The other supplies work their way around the ship, taking on all kinds of forms as transfiguration projects or art pieces or decoy lights of creation. Lots of paperclips are sacrificed for that particular project.

 

The only things that really stay in the office are the research tools. They can’t afford to lose these things, so they are always to be put back once someone is done with them. Davenport makes this very clear, and is shocked when everyone obeys him.

 

With this, the office is quickly transformed into a laboratory. Samples and curiosities from the worlds they travel to make their way on board, and are studied by anyone who wants to take a stab at it.

 

Nearly all of the time, this anyone is Barry.

 

Barry J. Bluejeans takes his job as the IPRE’s science officer very seriously. In the beginning, working is an easy way to cope with his feelings about losing his home and family. The harder he works, the more he discovers, the more he feels like he’s doing something that’s going to be worth it in the end. He spends anxious days and sleepless nights locked away in the lab, practicing and studying and doing everything he can to understand this situation he and his crewmates find themselves in.

 

Barry is _good_ at science. He’s _useful_ at it. What he’s not good at is socializing or expressing feelings or dealing with his own shit. He watches the others grow closer around him, and fights to keep them all at arm’s length. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself, he thinks, because it’s easier than thinking of the alternative. Of growing close to someone, only to lose them again.

 

Sometimes the others drop by the lab, to work or to visit.

 

Over time, it seems the one who drops by the most is Lup.

 

In the first few years, she comes down here to work on math projects. Barry sits across from her at the desk, unable to focus as she hums a tune, hair twisted up and eyes bright and hand racing across paper while she works. He wants to ask her about her work, sometimes, but is a little intimidated by her. He’s already been designated the ‘nerd’ of the crew, and maybe his interest in her math would make that worse.

 

A few weeks into cycle two, while Lup sits triangulating the location of the light of creation, he forces himself to talk to her. Some part of him longs for a piece of her energy as she hums and taps her fingers on the desk and presses pencil to paper.

 

“You uh… you accounting for wind speed?”

 

She looks up, with a pretty sharp expression, like she’s just told a joke he doesn’t understand yet.

 

“Yes I’m accounting for _wind speed,_ who do you think I am?”

 

Barry feels heat in his cheeks, and bites back an apology.

 

“I just, uh… I noticed you put 3.628 here. The wind was pretty nasty when we first saw it, right?”

 

“You’re focusing too much on the drag of the ship,” says Lup, leaning forward to point to a sloppy diagram. “You have to account for our speed when you look at these boys here.”

 

She taps her pencil on some more measurements. Barry takes a look, noticing all of the things she’s worked on so far. It’s brilliant, honestly. She's noticed details he never would have picked up on. There are a few things he would have included that he doesn’t see here, though.

 

“But the light was a lot higher up than us, right? Wouldn’t there be a difference in wind with height?”

 

Lup’s eyes seem to get brighter with everything he says. Her movements get more energetic, and he’s not sure if she’s happy or angry to be explaining all this to him.

 

“Yeah, but that’s what this is for…”

 

“Oh, okay, yeah. I get it. But… that’s assuming gravity is the same on this plane as on ours. Have you tested that?”

 

Lup sits back down, blinking a few times.

 

“…Sh…shit.”

 

There’s a silence, and Barry feels the overwhelming sense that he’s done something wrong.

 

“Taako?” Lup says, leaning her head back to gaze at her brother. Taako’s been hovering at the back of the lab all afternoon, doodling on notepaper and looking really, really bored.

 

“Mmm?”

 

“You wanna go drop stuff with me? I’ve gotta test something.”

 

Taako yawns dramatically.

 

“No. Absolutely not. Taako does not fuck with physics.”

 

“You were third in our class.”

 

“Yeah, and it sucked big time. That chapter in my life is doneso.”

 

Lup rolls her eyes.

 

“Nerd.”

 

“You’re the one who volunteered to do physics, nerd.”

 

“Yeah, because I’m fucking incredible at it.”

 

“You disgust me. Honestly.”

 

Lup snorts, taking one last sweeping look at her work before jumping to her feet.

 

“Fine, then I’ll take this nerd with me,” she says, gesturing to Barry.

 

This is news to him.

 

“Um… you will?”

 

“Yeah. You know what’s up, there, fella. It’ll be good to have someone who knows what the fuck they’re doing.”

 

Taako flips her off as she leaves the room. She ignores him, beckoning Barry to come with her. Barry feels heat in his cheeks again, just like he always seems to when he talks to her. Something about Lup is very stressful. She’s just so… cool. And, well, he’s a nerd. She said it herself.

 

“Neeeerddddddddddd,” Taako calls after Lup, hands cupped around his mouth for emphasis.

 

Lup just laughs, waving Barry forward again.

 

Something tells him that maybe being a nerd isn’t such a bad thing, after all.

 

Barry and Lup start to work together on things more often. Their research is still firmly their own, but whenever one of them needs a test subject, or a helping hand, they always turn to the other. The lab is still pretty much Barry’s territory, the desk scattered with precarious stacks of his things, but hints of evocation magic crackle throughout. A chair is set aside as, firmly, Lup’s chair. Her presence gives him these extra bursts of energy, inspires him to do better with every wave of her hands and tuck of her hair behind her ears, and he finds himself wrestling with a sloppy sort of crush.

 

Barry has had crushes before. He even dated a girl, once. But he battles this one down, because it is so clearly not the time for it. He works late into the night with the ghosts of his loved ones hanging over him, the weight of fallen worlds heavy on his chest. The things he can’t do follow him everywhere, out of reach, as he fights to keep his head above the waters of despair. Connection to others is put on hold by necessity. His moments of happiness are riddled with guilt.

 

So, naturally, love finds him where happiness can’t.

 

Cycle six is a world that seems normal at a glance, full of cities and small communities and greenery and oceans. The light falls on the wrong side of the planet, and the Starblaster skates over forest and field, searching for any hint of it. As they travel, they talk to folks. As they talk, apprehension builds.

 

Everyone in this world is anxious and afraid, a sense of waiting for something dark lurking beneath their every movements. After a month or so, the crew finds out why.

 

Blowing on the breeze outside, they discover a long, painstaking list of hundreds of thousands of names. A date at the top, and an explanation.

 

“This is… pretty fucked up, huh?” asks Davenport, flattening the list out across the lab’s desk. Barry had to move quite a few stacks in order to fit the whole list.

 

“Magnus, you’re on here,” says Lucretia, voice constricted with fear. She pulls out a highlighter, green, and highlights his name.

 

“What? No way. Not without a fight,” says Magnus, leaning forward. “Although I guess now you’re not the only one, Lucretia.”

 

She smiles weakly.

 

“We’ll go to the main building tomorrow and contest this,” says Davenport. “This is ridiculous. We don’t even belong here.”

 

He presses his palm to the list, and begins searching again.

 

The list, they’ve learned, is a comprehensive, randomly generated lineup of everyone who will die in the coming year. The date at the top, a date only a few weeks away, is when it will happen. Once per year, with limited warning, a tenth of the population is chosen at random, and killed. There are no doctors. There’s no religion. The great beings, lurking in the largest building in the world’s busiest city, select the people, old and young, healthy and sick, dimensional traveller or not, to die, and then it happens.

 

“Please tell me there’s no one else,” says Davenport, running his fingers through his thinning hair.

 

Lucretia hums in response, still looking over the names.

 

After a few more hours of searching, they finish looking it all over. Magnus and Lucretia are the only ones on it which, statistically, is still not great. They talk of plans to combat the list, joking about bribing the beings or dueling them or just using their charming personalities. It’s the kind of light-heartedness they have cultivated over a few years, now, of dealing with death in a way that no one else ever has. They filter out of the lab, still making their plans for the next few weeks.

 

Barry stays behind.

 

Barry knows death. Intimately. He’d studied as a necromancer, and lost everyone he’d ever known, and fights to save lives every day and night that he works in this laboratory. But something about this list gets under his skin. It works its way through his veins, reaching his heart with a cold iron grip, and he’s shaking, and falling apart, and staring at the names through tunnel vision before sweeping the whole thing off the table and putting his head down on the cool wooden desk. He breathes deeply, focusing on the things he can still do. He pushes his chair back, stands, and scours a few stacks of books. He selects an old favourite, about necromantic practices in a legal context.

 

He settles down with the book, and reads a few chapters before he realizes he hasn’t taken in a thing he’s been reading. His mind is foggy and frantic, scanning from thought to thought, as if it’s still searching through a forest of names. Every person he'd read the name of today, every person he'd ignored or brushed aside, is a person with a family, and a life, and people who care about them. Every person who found their name on that list today is going to be gone in a few weeks, just like Magnus and Lucretia will be if they can’t fight their case in the coming weeks. Losing those two is going to hurt a lot. But, he knows they’ll come back. They always do. The other people, the hundreds of thousands of others listed here, won’t.

 

And, if they can’t find the light of creation, neither will anyone else in this world.

 

The weight of it all comes crashing down onto him, crushing him, and he stumbles backwards, hitting a wall, slipping to the ground. He buries his head in his folded arms, back to a cabinet, and is racked by a sob he’s been holding in for six years now. He cries alone, and miserable, for what seems like a lifetime of troubles. He cries for his family, his friends, his gradeschool teachers and neighbours and classmates at the academy. He cries for everyone he ever made a cautious friendship with over six years of travelling through impossible places. He cries for every single person on that list, and for himself, and for the unfairness of all of the worlds. He feels like the smallest, most useless person to ever exist. He feels hopeless. He feels like giving up.

 

He feels a light touch on his arm.

 

“Barry?”

 

He startles to attention, head up and legs straightening and eyes blinking through pools of collected tears.

 

And there’s Lup.

 

He feels words forming in the back of his throat. An explanation, or something. He can hear her clever rebuttals already, her insistence that death has always been random, or that they’re doing the best they can. She'll want to push his mind in new directions, onto some very Lup-like optimism, and he just can’t feel it right now. He can’t feel anything through the weight of these worlds.

 

He starts to mumble something, and then he catches the look in her eyes. Not goading, not confused. Something deeper, softer, her face crumpled and her eyes kind. In that moment, he feels deeply and wholly understood. He feels like she understands things that even he can’t, right now.

 

She says nothing, sliding her hand off of his arm. She turns around, and he feels a jolt of panic. She can’t leave him. Not now.

 

But she doesn’t. She spins around, and sits next to him, silently, on the cold laboratory floor, late afternoon darkness sweeping in from the small window.

 

Slowly, he feels the weight start to lift. It’s still there, still crushing him, but it spreads. From where he sits, thigh and shoulder pressed into Lup’s beside him, the weight evens out, as if shared between the two of them. His breath heaves as his tears slow down, and he lets himself cry, lets himself ride it out in front of her like he never has before. He slides off his stained glasses, pressing his palms into his eyes.

 

He’s cried lots of times on this journey, but always alone. He’s always, always sought solitude in his times of despair, embarrassed by his own weakness. But here, as he sits with Lup, under the weight of everything he’s lost, the weakness goes away. He lifts the weight of worlds, and he feels strength.

 

“S… sorry, this… i…it’s stupid,” he says, breath still coming out of him in short, shuddering gasps. He tries to subtly wipe his nose.

 

Lup just shakes her head, turning to face him. He doesn’t turn yet, focusing on evening out his breathing.

 

“Nothing stupid about it.”

 

His breath hitches again. He struggles to form words, and, somehow, finds them spilling out of him before he even thinks them.

 

“I feel stupid I guess, I dunno, I’m, like, the science guy, that’s what I do, I’m not strong or good at fighting or anything so I have to use my brain and I try to be strong like you guys but I can’t do it, that’s just not my deal, you know, so I… I dunno…”

 

“Barry,” Lup breathes, and he finally turns toward her. Her look is so, so sincere, her eyes still warm in the cold of the afternoon. Something jolts in his chest.

 

“Do you… do you honestly think the rest of us don’t get like this? That’s… part of being strong. Really, it is. I cry all the fucking time. You can ask Taako. He does it too. Nothing to do with being weak or stupid or anything.”

 

Barry sighs, allowing himself a shaky smile that feels kind of wrong on his face.

 

“You’re not stupid, Barry,” she says, quieter, smiling softly before turning away again. “Not at all.”

 

He opens his mouth, but can’t think of anything to say. So he sits there, the last tears falling, his trembling hands settling down, grounding himself on Lup’s gentle contact.

 

“This is fucking… really tough,” Lup says, still quiet. “But it’s less tough if you… if you share it, okay?”

 

He turns to look at her again, and she turns to look at him, and their eyes meet, and a lightness rushes through him. He takes her in, all soft hair and skin and eyes, and she, like, smells good? His breath stops, and something settles deep in his gut, and his hands go steady, and she’s so _close_ to him, and all at once the crushing weight is lifted. The worlds are gone, she’s the only world, and she’s looking at him, and she’s so beautiful, and kind, and warm, and he _melts_. He leans forward, without even realizing it, and she comes to meet him, pulling him into an embrace that sets his nerves on fire and something rushes through him and fuck, shit, fuck.

 

Her warmth moves through his veins and he pulls away from her before he stays there forever. Looks away, down to his hands, and he’s in love.

 

“You good?” she asks, softly, rubbing his back in a way that feels sort of like fire. He focuses on her touch, and every movement ripples through him, and his head is clear, and he’s peaceful again, and his thoughts are only here, only now. He takes a deep breath, and looks to her again.

 

“Yeah,” he says. “I’m good.”

 

The next day, Magnus and Lucretia go to petition the beings in power for their lives. They don’t succeed, and they die along with everyone else selected by the cruel hands of fate.

 

It doesn’t even matter. In the end, they lose the light, and the world is gone. A new world comes into focus. Lup goes back to the lab, redoubling her efforts to find the light of creation. The cycle continues, a downward spiral with no end in sight. Researching, triangulating, running away. Somehow, impossibly, the Starblaster crew settles into a strange sort of pattern.

 

Cycle eleven creeps up on them. As the first blow hits the ship, there’s an initial panic, a feeling that something went wrong, that the hunger followed them into this new world.

 

Then, things come into focus.

 

They find themselves in the middle of a war zone, with unknown enemies attacking them from all sides. Davenport’s flying takes them out of it, barely, and they land in a relatively quiet town, where the situation is explained to them.

 

This world has always been at war. It’s kill or be killed, and if the crew won’t fight, they’re not going to make it through to the next year.

 

Magnus hates this useless fighting. He’s no stranger to violence and strife, but the meaninglessness of this gets to him in a big bad way. He finds one thing to cling to, a family of five who offer him a place to stay, happy people, _good_ people, and he decides to fight for them. If nothing else, he wants to make the world right for their sake.

 

Barry is confined to a tiny corner of the desk as Magnus pores over maps and lists and documents. He mumbles a lot as he works, and it drives Barry a little bit insane.

 

“You, uh… you doing alright there bud?” he asks, as Magnus lets out a huge groan.

 

“I’m doing GREAT, thank you for asking!” says Magnus, voice dripping with frustration. He draws a huge X over a section of land.

 

Magnus has spent weeks training with local tactical experts, and he’s showed a surprising amount of talent at war strategy. They’ve left him with the plans for the newest phase of an attack, and Magnus has been stressing over it for weeks, trying to figure out how to do this in the best way possible.

 

He strikes out another section of the map, and huffs out a breath.

 

“It’s like… it’s just bad!” Magnus bursts out, pressing his palms to the map.

 

Barry blinks at him.

 

“I hate this, it’s bad!” Magnus repeats. “If I try to lead them through here…”

 

He points to a spot on the map.

 

“Then everyone in front is open to attack! But if they go through here…”

 

More pointing.

 

“Then we’re risking the whole fleet! And then this one…”

 

Barry follows Magnus’ finger with his eyes, frowning.

 

“This here seems perfect, right? But they’re definitely gonna predict that and wait for us there, so do we go for it? Or will they know that we know that they know that it’s the best place, and leave it unguarded? Or what if they split up their guard? I just…”

 

Magnus takes his hands off the page, balling up his fists in frustration.

 

“I just don’t want anyone to get hurt. They’re all good people! Not even… not even the other guys are _bad,_ really. We just happened to land here, with these guys. I don’t even know what we’re fighting about! _They_ don’t even really know what they’re fighting about!”

 

Magnus’ muscles are super tense, now, and he decides to put away tactician Magnus for now, and become going-for-a-jog Magnus.

 

“Okay, I’m leaving,” he announces, pushing up from his chair and turning on a heel.

 

“Uh… glad I could help?” says Barry, cautiously putting some of his notes on top of the map.

 

Magnus has no problem fighting, but he needs something to fight for. He wants his new tactician skills to be worth something.

 

Someday, they will be. In a new home in the sky.

 

For now, he spends less and less time in the lab, until Barry starts piling stuff up again, and it’s his once more.

 

Years go by, and slowly, surely, Barry carves himself a space in the crew. He jokes alongside Taako and Merle and Magnus, works in happy quiet with Lucretia, and gets into deep, soul-searching talks with Davenport. They play games and share meals and bounce ideas off of one another. They’ll split off once they settle in a new world, only to pull back into one another, full of so many stories.

 

Barry and Lup never stray far from one another. They keep a professional tone while they work, and they work tirelessly, for decades. But, sometimes, a project ends. A stopping point is reached. A break needs to be taken.

 

“I found this _killer_ restaurant, you have to come.”

 

“I saw posters for this show… uh… if you want?”

 

“How far away do you think those mountains are?”

 

“Come look at this.”

 

“Stay there.”

 

“Stay.”

 

Stolen glances, unsteady breath. Warm faces and wandering hands. They both know it. They both have to know it. They know each other like their most well-traveled avenues, and something this big doesn’t just slip through the cracks. But their work comes first, and they know it, and neither would have it any other way. They are heroes and world-savers. They are made of electricity and warmth and stars.

 

Cycle forty-seven is spent away from the ship. Everyone lives with their respective professors at the Legato Conservatory, learning the art that will broadcast their souls to everyone the world over. The lab sits abandoned for a full year. But it is not empty.

 

Echoes of Lup and Barry’s time together fill the room. From the intermingling of handwriting on notes to the stained glassware piled on the counter. Balled up pieces of paper tossed into corners, pens rolling across counter tops, test tubes shoved into anywhere that will hold them. The room is warmed by their presence, even in their absence. A crescendo. A song.

 

They enter the lab happier than the lab has ever seen them.

 

Time goes on.

 

“Okay, what’ve you got for me?” asks Lup, throwing herself into the chair beside Barry’s. She presses her knee against his leg, feeling the warmth in the contact, nerves on fire, still not quite believing that this is just, kind of, okay now?

 

It has been less than a month since their big on-stage debut. Her hand still curls into the shape of a violin’s bow in the nighttime. She hums their song as she follows the light of creation’s trajectory.

 

“Uh, well…”

 

She can tell Barry has a big doofy grin on, even though a protective mask is covering his mouth and nose. They’ve both been more careful about safety equipment since they breathed in spores that somehow gave them itchy blue spots in cycle thirty-nine. Not a real fun time.

 

“Okay, so you know how magic doesn’t work in this world?” he asks, looking up from his notes. Fuck, his eyes are so blue. She leans in a little closer.

 

“Mmm. I noticed, yeah.”

 

“Right,” he looks down again, adjusting his glasses with the sleeve of his lab coat. “Well, anyway, I figured it might be good to have some kind of, I dunno, magic-style offense? Just in case, you know. So I’ve been working on a way to make controlled explosions through chemical chain reactions. It’s… a work in progress.”

 

He gestures to a diagram of a polymer, with a few labelled equations. She glances at it long enough to get the gist, then looks back up at the uncertain face of her favourite nerd.

 

Lup leans forward slightly, eyes wide. She can’t stop looking at him, all serious creases and patient breaths and fluttery fingers. Barry meets her gaze again. Clicks his pen.

 

“What?”

 

“What what?” asks Lup. More clicking.

 

“You’re lookin’ at me funny.”

 

She breaks into a manic grin, unable to force it down anymore. She hums a note. Leans in closer, electricity spreading out to her fingers and toes.

 

“I’m just thinking about how super fucking in love I am,” she says. And she _means_ it, jittery heart and unsteady breath. Her knee burns where it touches his.

 

“W… with me?” asks Barry. The corners of his eyes are scrunched up in that way they do when he’s smiling a whole lot, and he’s quickly turning red around the ears.

 

“No. With the fucking polymer.”

 

She can feel the heat radiating from his flushed face as she leans in more, toes curling, chair creaking.

 

“It’s uh… it’s a pretty sexy polymer,” he mutters.

 

A laugh burbles out of Lup, and, in one smooth motion, she bats the masks off of both of their faces, leaning in to kiss him good and hard. She slides his glasses onto his head, drinking in the closeness, and feels his breath hitch as he kisses her back, clumsily. Their noses bump together and she laughs again, against the softness of his mouth. His gloved hands move up her back, arms wrapping around her and pressing her as close as their office chairs will allow. She slides her arms up around his neck, laughing, laughing. It’s intoxicating, and she forces herself to draw back, head still buzzing.

 

She wags a disciplinary finger at him.

 

“Hey. No kissing in the lab.”

 

She reaches out, flicks his glasses down and snaps his mask back into place with the elastic. Then does her own.

 

“Aw, shit. We’re both poisoned now, aren’t we?” he says, adjusting his glasses, not looking even a little bit sorry.

 

“Probably. This is so tragic. I had so much cool shit left to do.” She leans backwards in her chair. “But you just had to go and break the no kissing in the lab rule, Baaaarry…”

 

She drags his name out, loving the way it sounds.

 

“We could…” Barry’s voice cracks. He clears his throat and starts again. “We could go… somewhere else? If you want?”

 

Lup’s heart picks up, and she jolts forward, caught completely off guard. Heat rises in her cheeks, and she turns away, forcing herself to calm down a little. Lup had always been very good at keeping her chill, and then along came Barry. This absolute nerdo, wrecking shop like he owned the place.

 

“I’m…” she pauses to laugh. His face is so adorably hopeful. “I’m gonna rain check on that one for now. Don’t give me that look! I WILL collect, and _soon_.

 

She leans forward, elbows on the desk.

 

 I was just thinking you’d maybe like to hear about _my_ project.”

 

Barry puts his own elbow on the desk, leaning into his palm.

 

“Mm, sure. Lay it on me.”

 

She scoots her bag out from beside her chair, hauling it up and balancing it on her knees.

 

“I was at the library earlier, and I took out some of the history books they had. So much dust, Barry. Unbelievable. Anyway, there’s some pretty interesting stuff in here about what happened to the plane of magic. I’m kind of fuzzy on the details though, maybe you want to take a peek?”

 

He sighs. She knows that he’ll want to look into this. He knows exactly what she wants in return. This is the language they’ve developed over almost fifty years of lab partner-ing.

 

He gathers up his papers, straightening them by the edges against the desk, then holds them out to Lup.

 

“A trade, then?”

 

She snatches his notes, then kisses him on the nose, through their masks. A trade.

 

After years of pining, the two of them want nothing more than to melt into each other, to overflow with wanting, to stay together always. But they both know that this isn’t an option. There will be time for all of the mushy stuff, and they will spread it out, evenly, with a kind of synchronicity earned over decades of best friendship. In between the romance, work comes first. They are steadfast in their studies, and they know this about each other, and they love it.

 

Still, it feels really damn nice to not have to hold back anymore.

 

Piles shift. Books of music change back to tomes. The tomes shift focus, advanced evocation to chemistry to world history to necromancy. The necromancy pile deepens. Night falls, and ancient laws are tested.

 

One night, in a world destroyed by a lust for magic, Lup and Barry return to the lab as powerfully changed beings. Taako hovers around them, sometimes, not fully understanding, as if his gaze can protect them, protect her. They do battle with life and death, held together by a love that they’ve cultivated over what is quickly becoming a century of time.

 

They continue on in their brilliance, working through life and death just as they always have. Every year for the length of a lifetime has been the same, with calculations to find the light of creation, research on the hunger, bonds, arcane energy, the planar system, anything they can think of that might lead to some answers. They’re close, now. They’re really fucking close.

 

In between these more extensive studies, they learn tidbits about the worlds they visit. Sometimes they find something wonderful, like the algae in cycle fifty-six that could fully replenish spell slots, or the ore in cycle sixty that let them cast any spell that anyone around them knew (Magnus had a great time with that one). Sometimes, the discoveries are horrible, like the itchy blue spots thing. Sometimes, things that seem horrible end up taking a turn for the better, and vice versa. Sometimes a property of the world they’re in gets very old, very fast.

 

Cycle eighty-nine has been particularly challenging.

 

Davenport clears his throat, flipping through a few pages in some papers on illusion magic, then belts out a request in a deep, opera voice.

 

“Have you seeeeeeeeeeeeeeen my notes from yesterday?”

 

Lup would laugh, if it wasn’t so annoying.

 

“NoOOooo.”

 

She had meant to spend about a tenth of the time saying that word. Her voice is getting rough.

 

Some sort of ancient, evil curse was put on this plane long before the Starblaster’s arrival. From the second they had appeared here, woven from silver threads, none of them have been able to say a single thing without full-on singing it.

 

At first, they’d all laughed at each other. That lasted for about thirty seconds, until the panic set in. No one wanted to hear Merle sing about his medical conditions. Davenport’s tendency towards opera made the simplest conversations really, really long. Lucretia’s voice was kind of crackly, Magnus’ was incredibly loud, and Lup’s was gorgeous, natch. Taako had always sung too much, so this was fine. And Lup kind of liked Barry’s singing voice. It reminded her of his piano playing.

 

It got very weird during, say, strategy meetings, though. Or when they were trying to do some peaceful research. Davenport crumpled the pages of his notes in a small, shaky fist.

 

“There haaaaaas to be some waaaaaaaay to ffffiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIx thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis...”

 

Barry looks up during the start of Davenport’s sentence, but gives up about halfway through and returns to his own notes.

 

“I’m working on it~”

 

So far, no luck. Lup hums as she sketches a trajectory for the light of creation.

 

They find the light, and the musical world lives to sing on. Everyone is a bit thrown off by listening to normal speech again in cycle ninety. Magnus insists on still singing everything for about a week, until Davenport pulls him aside for a professional talk that means absolutely nothing. Any hint of professionalism went away decades and decades ago, when Lup started openly swearing in front of the captain and Lucretia started recording emotional backstories in her journals and Merle started walking around in only a towel.

 

They’re a family now, through hell and back. The seven of them work so closely together that, eventually, they start to shut the rest of the worlds out. Tensions run high. Escapes get narrow. Decisions are made.

 

Barry crafts the animus bell in the Starblaster’s laboratory. Then, he stops going there for a while. Any reminder of what they’ve created is so horribly painful that it’s best to avoid it altogether. Even after all of the good that’s been done in the lab, all of the world-saving and self-discovery and falling in love, it becomes a ghostly reminder of the suffering they’ve created. People come to the lab only to get away from the others, and nothing else. No research is done. Dust settles on glassware. Time slows to a crawl. Bonds are stretched, and tested, and hearts ache.

 

Lup sits in a chair and lies across the lab’s desk, the grain of the hundred-year-old wood pressing into the soft skin of her cheek. Her arms are folded in her lap, her mind hazy, her eyes dull and unseeing. She’s tired. Very tired.

 

Usually, when Lup is awake, she’s in motion. Always on her grind. When Lup’s tired, she sleeps. But something different is going on, here. A kind of exhaustion that she feels to her core.

 

She hears the door open, and her long ears flatten against her head. Shame curls in her stomach. It has to be Barry. No one else would bother finding her here.

 

The echoes of their fight bounce in her head, and her fingers twitch. No footsteps approach. Silence chokes her. She can’t stand it anymore.

 

She sits up, slowly, and her heart aches when she sees him. He stands in the laboratory’s doorway, face creased with worry, gorgeous blue eyes as hollow as her own. He fiddles with the sleeve of an old sweater, an oversized one that’s become one of her favourites, too. She feels something prickling in the back of her eyes, and brings her hands up onto the desk. She looks away, unable to face him, unable to feel the pain of love battling guilt and fear.

 

“I…”

 

She forces herself to look back at him, fighting to keep her voice steady.

 

“I’m… s-so _sorry_.”

 

Nope, not steady. Cool job, voice.

 

He heaves a low sigh, then walks towards her. She glances back down, and swallows through a painful lump in her throat. He settles down in a chair across from her. It’s her chair.

 

She dares to look up again, and when her eyes meet his she feels the tears spilling over. A few short minutes ago, she’d hated everything about him. Spat obscenities she’d immediately regretted. Something small triggered an avalanche of frustrations that she wishes with all of her heart she could take back. And Barry had responded with his own poisons, their words twisting into the worst fight they’d ever had. A hundred years of stress and pain, targeted at one of the few things that even mattered. Lup had wanted him to hate her. She deserves his hatred, even now. Deserves the hatred of worlds.

 

Still, the weaker part of herself only wants him to hold her, and love her, and keep the world away. All of the vitriol of their fight is gone, replaced by a tender spot that only he has the power to heal.

 

“I’m sorry too,” he says, and, fuck, she sees him crying now. Gentle, almost unnoticeable tears that hold the weight of a hundred fractured worlds.

 

She rubs at her own tears, then forces herself to look at him again. His lips are trembling, and she hates herself.

 

“I… fuck. Don’t be sorry. Fuck.”

 

He flashes a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

 

“We, uh… we really goofed it, huh?”

 

She laughs a soggy laugh.

 

“Big time.”

 

He leans forward across the table, and they lace their fingers together. She focuses on his hand, warm and steady. The familiarity of it is so, so comforting to her, and her tears slow to a stop.

 

“I love you so much, babe,” she whispers.

 

“I love you too,” he responds, immediately, just like always. She bites down a manic sort of laugh, and lays her head down on the desk.

 

“You have no idea…” she says, voice gravelly. “How much I love you.”

 

He hums a note, and lays his head down across from hers, staring into her eyes, upside-down. Their hands lie between them, still laced together.

 

“I can’t fuck this up,” she says. “I… you’re the one good thing I still have going for me… I can’t… I c-can’t lose you.”

 

Another tear slips out, running across her cheek and onto the wood of the desk.

 

“Never,” he says, voice crackly with his own tears. “Course not. You couldn’t lose me if you tried.”

 

She snorts out a laugh, closing her eyes. She brings their hands to her mouth, brushing her lips against the back of his knuckles. She feels her own breath bouncing back at her, tickling her face and drying her tears.

 

She falls into a short, restless sleep.

 

When she wakes up, he’s still there.

 

In the years that follow, this moment eats her alive.

 

In the umbra staff, she focuses on her memories. It’s the only way for her to keep it together, as a lich. Times gone by reverberate around her, keeping her grounded and driving her crazy.

 

Making wry jokes with Lucretia. Bothering Davenport at the helm of the Starblaster. Wrestling with Magnus. Cheating at cards with Merle. Taako, her brother, her heart, her best day ever. Barry, all softness and light and sleepy good mornings. He’d promised to always be there for her, and she knew he meant it. Why the fuck could she not do the same for him?

 

Red electricity crackles, and Lup thinks of lighting a DMV on fire. She calms herself down from a dangerous place. She collects her thoughts, kicks their asses, and shapes them into something that she is the ruler of. She has no other choice, if she’s going to get out of this with her mind in one piece. (When Taako finds the umbra staff, of course, it gets easier to focus on the good things.)

 

After Lup’s disappearance, the Starblaster’s laboratory becomes a frantic mess of maps and news stories. Everything the crew was working towards is put on pause until she is found. Barry and Taako especially spend every waking moment on the ship poring over their findings. When the lab gets too depressing, they drag their things elsewhere. They are exhausted, and afraid, and the lab suffers from it.

 

No one has bothered to clean it up since then.

 

“Holy shit, babe. I think a couple nasty raccoons got their hands on our aesthetic.”

 

Lup surveys the scene, stepping carefully over some debris to get in the door to the lab. Barry shrugs, a little uncomfortably.

 

“Well uh… can I blame all of Davenport’s air stunts? Maybe stuff got jostled around a bit?”

 

“Oh, yeah, no. That’s it for sure. Air stunts, the concept, loves coffee and also coffee mugs.”

 

She gestured to a collection of mugs sitting in the sink, piled up and rattling with the ship’s movement. There seems to be some broken glass in the mix, too. Something brown and ancient has dried in a sticky stain on the floor.

 

“Gotta have caffeine to stay on that grind,” says Barry, sidestepping in front of a collection of newspaper clippings about gauntlet-related glassings. No need for her to see that right now. She breaks into a huge smile, hands on her hips, as she takes in the lab in full.

 

“Well, bless this fucking mess. It’s good to be back.”

 

Barry nods, looking away from Lup for long enough to take in the room for himself. The decor is pretty rough on him, reminding him of all of his time spent searching for her. The lab itself, though, is packed full of so many good memories that it outweighs the queasy feeling in his chest.

 

“Fuck. Babe. Look at this.”

 

He snaps out of wherever his head is at, and turns to find Lup, reaching up towards the top of an open cabinet, eyes sparkling with excitement. Her shirt pulls up a bit as she reaches up, and he sees the soft skin of her belly, and he’s vividly reminded of his early days sneaking guilty glances of her as they worked together in this very room. He knows every inch of her now, and she’s back, and his heart swells as she holds out a test tube for him to look at.

 

“This is labelled from _cycle twenty-three_ ,” she says, waving it at him. He takes it from her, examining it.

 

The tube is bursting apart with something very fuzzy and very grey. The cork threatens to pop off at any moment.

 

“Wh… why did I take this?” he asks, holding it back out to her. She takes it back with a laugh, pinching it between two fingers.

 

“No, you know what I think this is? It’s some of that weird fruit that made us all really stupid. You remember cycle twenty-three, babe. Merle loved that cycle.”

 

Sure enough, Barry remembers it. A weird sort of downer drug that made for some interesting afternoons.

 

“Should we keep it just in case?” asks Lup, one eyebrow raised.

 

“This… this sample is older than half of the people on this ship,” says Barry.

 

“Super potent.”

 

“Lup, please.”

 

She sticks her tongue out at him, then throws the sample onto the overflowing trash pile. They smile at each other, then she turns away, continuing to rifle through old samples. Barry thinks she was probably joking about the potency. He’s mostly able to tell when she’s joking, after more than a hundred years with her. She’s stretching again, and he can hardly stand it.

 

“You know,” he says, glancing to a cabinet a few feet from her. “This is where I first realized I loved you.”

 

Lup pauses in her search, face softening. She turns towards him with a smirk.

 

“Ooh, cheesy. Tell me more.”

 

“You know,” says Barry, because she does.

 

“Hmm, but it’s good on the ego innit?” she says, because it is.

 

Barry’s eyes fall to the cabinet again, and he waves a vague hand at it.

 

“I was crying, and you sat with me.”

 

“Mm, smooth, past me,” she says, sidling up beside Barry. “I’m so fucking comforting.”

 

Barry leans into her, feeling something particularly sappy coming on.

 

“Yeah. It’s one of many things I love about you.”

 

Lup laughs.

 

“Slow down there, Barr. I’m already a little motion sick. Having a body is wild, huh?”

 

He chuckles, eyes wandering the room again.

 

He grunts as, without warning, Lup lunges forward and wraps herself around him, lips clumsy on his. She holds him for a while in a lingering kiss, and he feels himself warming up, their breath mingling and hearts beating onto each others’ chests. She pulls away, and he leans forward into the space she leaves.

 

“You know, you still blush a little when I surprise you,” says Lup, face stretched into a goofy grin. Barry’s heart hums in his chest.

 

“Oh yeah?”

 

“Mm hm. It’s one of many things I love about you.”

 

“…Sap.”

 

“Nerd.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops all blupjeans. With a little jumpscare of Magnus, I guess?  
> I enjoyed writing this sappy stuff VERY much, but there was a definite lack of Merle in this chapter. Maybe that will be fixed next chapter???? (ooh, a hint, wow, how mysterious.)


	8. The Sickbay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Slight cw for blood and needles in this one. Hopefully nothing too bad, but just a heads up!

Davenport lets his hand fall limp. He's seriously considering just walking away, at this point. He’s been knocking for about five full minutes, sure that he’d seen Merle go straight to his dorm after briefing.

 

As soon as he turns around, however, he hears a scrabbling behind the door. 

 

The door opens a crack, and Merle stands on the other side, bleary-eyed, and with his beard ruffled to one side.

 

“Wha? Oh, it’s you. What is it?”

 

Davenport is a bit taken aback by the nonchalance of it all. Had Merle really fallen so deeply asleep in such a short amount of time?

 

“Erm, yes, sorry to disturb.”

 

There’s an uncomfortable pause. Merle does not forgive him. He moves on.

 

“We’re going through the supply list for the Starblaster right now, and we were wondering if you’d like to look over the list for the Sickbay? See if we’re missing any necessities?”

 

“Oh… sure,” He says, flippantly. “Hand it over.”

 

Davenport passes him the list, shifting his weight from foot to foot. Merle still hasn’t opened the door to his room past the initial crack.

 

Merle brushes some rogue hair out of his face, and scans the list in about four seconds before passing it back to Davenport.

 

“I’m gonna be honest with you, captain. I don’t have any _clue_ what most of this crap is,” he says, breaking into peals of laughter.

 

Davenport’s mouth falls open.

 

“You’re… you’re the medic, Merle.”

 

“Oooh yeah, that’s true,” says Merle, waving a hand. “I don’t need any of that stuff, though. I heal through the power… of God.”

 

Alarm bells instantly go off in Davenport’s head. This man has tested so well for his position, how is it possible that he lacks so much of the fundamental knowledge of medicine?

 

“It would make the crew… more comfortable, I think, if you would review this list before we go,” says Davenport, sliding the sheet out of his clipboard and passing it to Merle.

 

Merle yawns widely, and takes a few moments to scratch his belly before reaching for the list.

 

“Yeah, sure. Can’t hurt, right?”

 

“It certainly can’t.”

 

“I’ll have it down by the end of the month,” Merle says, and Davenport’s fake smile falls a bit further.

 

“We leave in four days.”

 

Merle laughs again.

 

“Well, shit.”

 

Davenport has a very bad feeling about this.

 

Four days later, the crew takes off on their mission. What begins as hope and excitement and light soon crashes and burns to ash, with the seven remaining members of the IPRE left to take on the legacy of their ruined world.

 

They arrive at a planet full of talking, intelligent animals. It’s a rough-and-tumble sort of world, and more often than not the crew stumbles aboard at the end of the day with all manner of cuts, bruises, and scrapes. Lucretia develops some sort of zoonotic illness that takes her out for three full weeks. Merle never responds to these things right away, waiting until Davenport reminds him that he’s in charge of healing to act (Oh, shit, right! That’s my cue.)

 

He does alright with healing, and his magic is enough to prevent anything deadly, at least. Merle is a decent medic, for sure, but there’s something else about him that reminds Davenport of exactly why he was selected for this mission.

 

The emotional toll of losing their home hurts more than anything their new world can throw at them. Somehow, Merle remains a steady presence through it all, teasing and joking just enough to keep people grounded, providing moral support where needed, and talking through things whenever it gets to be too much. Davenport is an excellent captain, but dealing with grief is so far from his area of expertise that he spends the first few months in this strange world just uncomfortably avoiding the crew in the off hours.

 

This is where Merle finds his stride. As Davenport strolls by the sickbay on the way to storage, he’ll often catch sight of Merle, hunched over someone’s healed injury, talking gently to them, trying to heal something much deeper, and much more painful. He sees Lucretia crying as Merle hugs her midsection awkwardly. Barry lies on the hospital bed, talking out his problems to the ceiling as Merle prompts him to move further. He cries with Magnus as they talk about their families. He even sees the twins in there, a few times, though they mostly just seem to tease one another.

 

Maybe Merle isn’t the best healer. He doesn’t always remember his job, or save enough spell slots, or properly diagnose people. But he does his best, with so much honesty that no one can help but love him. As the animal world is swallowed, and a hundred other worlds pass by, Merle remains a constant peaceful presence, always there to give people exactly what they need, whether they know they need it or not.

 

Davenport finally breaks down in cycle five. It’s a mystery to even himself how he’s managed to last this long. They arrive in a world full of so much smog that it blots out the sky, and on their first night parked outside of a brightly-lit city, Davenport realizes he can no longer see the stars.

 

His heart seizes up, and the world around him sort of spins, and he’s sure he’s having a heart attack as he chokes out a cry for Merle. Merle is there right away, supporting him on the way down to the sickbay. When they arrive, Merle can find nothing apparently wrong.

 

Davenport opens his mouth to protest, and breaks into violent sobs. He gasps for breath, tears splashing down his face, and Merle steps forward, without flinching, and puts a hand on his shoulder. Davenport reaches up to hold Merle’s hand between both of his own, trembling fiercely, and he cries until there’s nothing left inside of him.

 

It must be an hour before he quiets down enough for Merle to speak.

 

“Do you want to talk about it, buddy?”

 

In cycle seven, Lup breaks her leg. She takes up residence in the sickbay, laughing wildly as she commands Merle to bring her things and help her get places and sign her cast. It’s not even the kind of cast you _can_ sign.

 

In cycle eleven, Barry stumbles aboard with a gash on his head so deep he can barely stand upright. Merle makes him rest for a few days, and the two talk about their lives and their families, and dump a lot of their fears on each other before realizing how real things are getting.

 

In cycle fifteen, Taako gets a chest cold and develops a temporary sort of asthma. He complains about it endlessly, like it’s the worst thing he’s ever gone through. (“Could you pass me that glass of water?” “It’s like right in front of you.” “Lup, I have _asthma._ ”) Merle gives him some things to breathe in that may or may not actually do anything, and Taako gets better with time.

 

Lucretia gets some sort of flu in cycle twenty-nine, and Merle takes care of her every day until she feels better. In her feverish haze, she gets super emotional, telling him every few minutes that he means so much to her, and she’s so glad he’s here. He doesn’t hear this again for at least fifty years, but likes to bring it up whenever he feels like flustering her a little bit.

 

Magnus gets some sort of injury basically every time he leaves the ship, and sometimes when he doesn’t. Merle stocks up on children’s band aids with little cartoon characters on them, at first to try to bother Magnus, but then because Magnus loves them.

 

The crew sees a lot of each other after living together for so long. At their worst, they support each other, and that’s the fundamental heart that drives their ship forward and their hopeful spirits towards world after dying world.

 

Cycle fifty-five is a bit of a write off. This will happen sometimes, where the crew finds a place so far gone that their first priority becomes their own survival, as opposed to the survival of the world.

 

Taako is pretty sure he’s dying.

 

It’s not a new feeling, of course. He’s died a few times already, doing all sorts of cool shit. It’s just never sucked this bad.

 

“Lucretiaaaaaaaaaa…” he whines, rolling over in the hospital bed.

 

Lucretia looks up from her chair beside him, laying her journals down on the side table.

 

“You called?”

 

“Lucreeeeetiaaa refresh my cloth.”

 

Lucretia sighs.

 

“Sure.”

 

She stands up, peeling a wet cloth away from Taako’s forehead. He groans, tossing an arm over his head.

 

Lucretia brings the cloth to the sink, rinsing it out a few times under cold water, and then bringing it back to place on Taako’s head. He says nothing, pushing himself farther under the covers. This is truly a thankless job, but Lucretia doesn’t mind.

 

Lucretia is pretty sure he’s dying.

 

This illness has been spreading pretty rampantly through the settlement they landed in, and kills quite a lot of the people who get it. Merle was the first of their crew to contract it, after spending so much time in the village trying to heal the townsfolk. He actually managed to create a vaccine for it before deciding, through a nasty fever, to write off the year and duck into parley with John.

 

The rest of them were vaccinated as soon as possible, but, unfortunately for Taako, the illness had already spread a little bit amongst the crew. Davenport had kicked the illness after a few days, but Taako was in a decline that left everyone sort of solemn and on edge. Lup spent every possible waking moment in the sickbay by Taako’s side, caring for him with a fierce sort of anger and terror. Lucretia had taken over for her a few hours ago, after the rest of the crew staged an intervention, assuring Lup that she could resume her post after getting some rest.

 

Lucretia’s presence is pretty welcome, actually. Around her, Taako allows himself to be fully miserable, not having to try to think of anything interesting to say, and not stewing in guilt because Lup is losing him. His sister is electric, always pacing and asking questions and wringing her hands. Lucretia has more of a quiet bedside manner, maybe not as warm, but more calming.

 

“The townsfolk said we could try to treat you with some oils,” says Lucretia.

 

Taako groans, rolling over and cracking open crusty eyes to see her half-smiling at him.

 

“Yeah, because clearly that’s been working _great_ for them.”

 

Lucretia shrugs.

 

“I’ve also heard good things about moon rituals, and I had a deep conversation today with a man who was very intent on getting you to slaughter a cat.”

 

Taako burrows back under the blankets, not even fully able to respond to that in his fever haze.

 

“Alternatively,” says Lucretia. “He said we could just drill a hole in your head.”

 

Taako scowls under the blankets.

 

“You’re _not_ drilling a hole in my head.”

 

“That’s a shame.”

 

A few days later, Taako slips away quietly, as Lup holds his hand.  He can’t feel her tears as they fall, fast and heavy, on his forehead.

 

This is the hardest part of any cycle: when they’re left with the lifeless body of someone they love, and have to deal with the emotional disconnect of watching them burn. It's hard to believe, in that moment, that they'll be back again within the year. 

 

When Taako is knit back together in the next cycle, he feels like a million bucks. He breathes in full breaths for about half a glorious second before Lup tackles him into a crushing hug that knocks all of the wind out of him.

 

When Lup requires medical attention in cycle sixty-one, she casually refuses to sit on the bed her brother died in.

 

“Gotta say, this is pretty much super upsetting,” she says through gritted teeth, as Merle covers her arm in gauze.

 

She did well with the stitches, but she’s still bleeding a lot, and it’s getting harder and harder to stay standing.

 

“The blood loss, or the pain, or what?” asks Merle, wrapping her wound, careful not to fall off of the chair he’s standing on.

 

“Hmm,” Lup looks away from her wound, out of pain or deep thought or something. “I think mostly just the fact that hamsters are supposed to be cute and small and not maul you _right_ in the arm.”

 

“Aw, don’t hold it against the hamster,” says Merle. “They’re still cute, even if they’re huge.”

 

Lup hisses as the wrap presses against her stitches.

 

“Sure, Merle. Adorable. Love those spell-slot hogging little assholes.”

 

“I _said_ sorry, already!” says Merle.

 

Merle has been way too into this cycle, Lup thinks. A civilization of giant hamsters living in a weird sort of habitrail. It’s way too warm, and smelly, and all of their food comes in pellets. She literally can’t understand why Merle is so into it.

 

He’d spent all of his spell slots for that day helping the hamsters build a huge nest. He didn’t even leave one for, say, a hamster-bite style emergency. And no cantrip is strong enough for the world of hurt Lup is currently experiencing.

 

Merle helps Lup into a sling, and she cracks a smile, to let him know it’s chill.

 

“There, that’ll be good until tomorrow,” says Merle. He brushes a hand through his beard, dislodging a few rogue wood shavings. 

 

Lup waves her arm up and down, experimentally.

 

“I’m like a fucking chicken.”

 

“Shut your yap with the complaining,” says Merle, folding his arms.

 

Lup laughs. She sort of likes chickens.

 

“Thanks, Merle.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” Merle turns around, arranging things on the counter with a weird energy.

 

Lup pauses. He's not really putting anything away, just sort of moving things around, flustered.

 

“You know, you always do that,” she says, putting her good hand on her hip.

 

“Huh?”

 

“That cleaning thing, bubaleh. Whenever someone thanks you you get all hokey.”

 

“Is it really so weird for me to clean up after working?” asks Merle, turning back to her with his best attempt at a hurt expression.

 

“Mm hmm, it is,” says Lup, without missing a beat. She’s seen his room.

 

“Shut up,” he says again.

 

“Hmm, prickly,” says Lup, taking a step towards the door. She stops. No. He doesn’t get off this easily.

 

“Seriously, though, thanks. You did good.”

 

She waves her chicken arm again.

 

“You’re… you’re, welcome, I guess,” says Merle, and he feels his face getting all hot and red against his will.

 

Lup leaves, mercifully, and Merle is left to box up his unwanted emotions in peace.

 

Ever since Merle started training as a cleric, he’d learned not to accept compliments. From his earliest days healing his fellow commune dwarves, mending injuries and healing sickness and sitting at the bedside of those too far gone, he had been all but invisible to the people whose lives he touched.

 

“Oh, thank Pan,” says the mother, as her child’s fever is brought down.

 

“Wow, it’s a miracle! Pan is good!” says the man with the newly-mended hand, blessed after a late-night farming accident. 

 

Every thank you was aimed at a God who, Merle thinks, had less than nothing to do with the healing. These thoughts lead to guilt, and prayer, and further praises for the God that had, for all intents and purposes, caused the accidents in the first place. The kid was sick after breathing in a bunch of pollen, anyone could see that. And the farming man had been growing crops, just as Pan had told him to.

 

Maybe Merle isn’t cut out for this cleric business, after all.

 

And yet, through the guilt, something inside him blossoms at Lup’s thanks. If the Gods had to put them all in this shitty situation, he’s glad that they put him with this crew.

 

He says a quick prayer, then slips out the sickbay door, determined to finish up the hamster nest he’d started. The counter stays messy, for now.

 

Slowly, and with Pan’s help, Merle teaches himself to accept thanks. It’s an uphill battle.

 

“Thanks Merle, I think… you gave it a good shot…”

 

Barry groans, erupting into more coughs.

 

Merle’s vision tunnels as he shakily stands up from where Barry lays, blood staining the sickbay floor, skin mangled. Every shake of the Starblaster’s escape sends him into further spasms of pain. Magnus is a rough pilot.

 

Cycle eighty-one is a rough cycle. 

 

Merle doesn’t want to touch Barry, anymore. It’s too late. They all know it’s too late. Merle doesn’t deal with dying crewmates, not anymore. It’s too much for his old heart to handle.

 

“That’s bullshit!” cries Lup, huddled over Barry, cradling his head in her lap. “Merle, get back here, you just have to…”

 

She chokes back a sob, unable to finish her sentence. There’s nothing Merle can do, and she knows it. Davenport buries his face in his hands, crumpling on the bed.

 

Merle leaves. This is not his job. He doesn’t deal with dead bodies. Not of the people he cares about. The guy who does… well, he is the dead body, this time. This is the Captain’s call, then.

 

These days, Davenport is really only the Captain when it means he has to do something hard. It isn’t fair, sure, but it’s what he signed up for.

 

Had any of them signed up for this?

 

Lup folds over Barry as Merle leaves the room, all hope rushing out of her in a single, painful gasp.

 

She kisses his face over and over, sliding off his grimy glasses, feeling his breaths weaken and his chest heave. She feels broken, and desperate, and weak.

 

“This…” Barry breathes, so quietly she isn’t sure if she imagined it. She pauses in kissing him, pressing her forehead to his, trembling.

 

“This is the last time,” he says, weakly, and fire burns through her.

 

“Yeah,” she says, voice sounding odd and crackly and far away.

 

She ignores Davenport. This is just for her and just for Barry. A promise, a secret they’ve been keeping for years now.

 

“Never again,” she says, brushing her thumbs down his cheeks, hands curling. He doesn’t respond, too weak to do much of anything anymore.

 

“Never again,” she repeats, mind racing through books and ceremonies and horrible illustrations and twinges of guilt and fear. “I’ll never have to live without you again.”

 

But her promise falls on deaf ears.

 

The next cycle passes with no major medical disasters. The sickbay remains empty of patients, but Merle still likes to check in on it from time to time.

 

In the last few months, Lup and Barry sneak into the sickbay for countless secret examinations, testing their bodies for all sorts of weird things. Merle notices, of course. He isn’t an _idiot._

He corners them one night, as they collect phials of blood, placing them in some sort of nefarious test tube rack.

 

He bursts through the door with as much intimidation as he can drum up. They both startle towards him, and, admittedly, he should probably have made sure all of the needles were away before bursting in here.

 

“Ow, _fuck_ , babe!” screeches Lup, pulling away.

 

“Ah, sorry, sorry!” says Barry, blood dripping from a syringe onto Merle’s chair.

 

The three of them flounder for a while, with sharps containers and syringe wrappers and loud apologies and prestidigitation for clean-up.

 

As the chaos settles, Lup steps back, pressing a thumb to her arm where the needle was rudely ripped away. She frowns deeply at Merle, and Merle stares back. Barry looks between the two of them, guilt written all over his face.

 

“You two… have been keeping secrets from me!” says Merle, pointing an accusatory finger at Lup. She looks away, annoyed.

 

Barry steps in, trying to calm things down a bit.

 

“Listen, Merle, we…”

 

“I don’t want to hear it!”

 

Merle points his other finger at Barry, which looks a little less cool than he thought it would, but whatever.

 

“We don’t keep secrets from each other, here! We’re a team!”

 

Merle pauses, trying to make eye contact with one of them. Neither of them look at him.

 

“Besides… I know exactly what’s goin’ on, so you can stop sneaking around behind my back.”

 

This catches their attention.

 

“You do?” Barry asks. He looks to Lup, quickly, then settles on fidgeting with his hands.

 

“Of course I do! I wasn’t born yesterday!” says Merle. Lup looks at him with her head slightly tilted.

 

“The secret talking… the couples stuff… all of the studying, but you won’t show us what it’s about… I mean, I can’t say it’s something I’ve really dealt with before, especially not on this ship. I’m more of a wounds and colds and poisons kind of guy…”

 

“Have you been… spying on us, Merle?” asks Lup, blinking.

 

“I am very stealthy!” Merle says.

 

Barry and Lup exchange a look.

 

“Look,” says Merle, finally letting his arms drop. “All I’m sayin’ is you don’t have to sneak around. You can come to me with anything.”

 

Lup frowns again.

 

“Merle… what exactly do you think is going on, here?”

 

Merle crosses his arms.

 

“Look, I know an STD when I see one!”

 

Barry makes a squeaky sort of half-noise, face instantly going red. Lup bursts into laughter, leaning back against the counter and throwing a hand over her forehead.

 

“No! No. No no. That’s not it, no,” stammers Barry.

 

“Oh, now I’m the idiot,” says Merle, with a stunning lack of shame.

 

Merle and Barry pause for a minute as Lup folds in half with laughter, wheezing a bit. Barry lays a hand on her back, a little worried that she’ll pass out or something.

 

She slowly brings herself back up, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye.

 

“Well, not that this wouldn’t be a great conversation to have with you, Merle, but we’re honestly fine,” she says. “We’re testing to see what effects the plane of magic has on magic users. Very scientific. Lots of data.”

 

Her ear twitches a bit with the lie, and Merle isn’t fooled for a single second. He’s _not_ an idiot.

 

But he also knows when to keep his mouth shut, sometimes.

 

“Fine, fine,” he says, waving his hand at her. “Just clean up when you’re done.”

 

Lup gives a mock-salute, and Barry nods, still a little off-kilter from the conversation they’d dodged.

 

By the end of the cycle, everyone knows that Lup and Barry have gone lich. They take on the hunger in their new forms, and make some sort of breakthrough, and all of it pretty much goes right over Merle’s head.

 

Hurt and wounds. Wounds and scars. Scars and time.

 

They save the world, and pick up the pieces with the practiced grace of seven people who have picked up a million pieces, fit them together, and formed a family.

 

“Are you gonna kiss it better, too, pop?” asks Mookie, wiggling his knee at his father.

 

“Uh, sure, kiddo.”

 

Merle leans over the fresh band-aid, planting a whiskery kiss on his son’s injury. He could’ve healed it in no time with magic but, well, little scrapes like this build character! Probably.

 

“Thanks dad!” says Mookie, bouncing up from the chair and effectively kneeing his dad in the face.

 

“Ow, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh…….it,” says Merle, trying and failing to think of a replacement swear. He’ll get there someday.

 

Mookie doesn’t even notice, just spins around, ready to go right back to playing. Merle stands up, ruffling Mookie's already-messy hair.

 

“You know, you should thank Pan, not me,” he says.

 

Mookie frowns, cocking his head to the side.

 

“Why?”

 

Well, he’s got Merle there.

 

“Because Pan’s… he’s a good guy, you know.”

 

Mookie shrugs, jumping back to action. He waves half a goodbye before rocketing out of the room and back down the hall to the common area.

 

“You’re gonna fall again!” Merle warns, but he’s pretty sure Mookie’s too far away to hear him anyway.

 

Time is something Merle has always had a lot of. Time to heal his family, time to save the world, time to think and change and grow. And now, he thinks, he has time to heal again. And this is maybe the most important thing he’s ever had to heal. A relationship. A bond.

 

Merle loves his kids more than he’s ever loved anyone he’s ever known. A thousand times more. A million times. He wants to play cards with them, and tell them old stories, and teach them about Pan. He wants so many things for them. And he has time, now. He's made his choice. 

 

He rocks himself back to standing, his old bones complaining as he stretches out his back and neck and shoulders.

 

“DAD!” calls a voice from far away. Mookie is way too excited as he continues on. “I GOT HURT AGAIN DAD COME SEE!”

 

Merle sighs. Well, there’s no rest for a healer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This message is brought to you by your friendly neighbourhood healer. My tiefling is named naruto and she's a meme and I love her. I wrote a good amount of this while I was sick, so any whining that happens is just me projecting my own emotions onto fictional characters. Cough. Sneeze. Whimper. I also really made Lup suffer in this chapter? I’m sorry Lup I love you.


	9. Taako's Cabin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! There’s a mention of Lup’s transition in this one. I did my very best, but please let me know if something’s up, there! Just thought I’d let y’all know beforehand.

“Well, these will be our cabins,” says Davenport. He waves down a hallway, three doors squished together on each side, and a door at the end of the hall.

 

Before Davenport’s sentence is even fully finished, Magnus rockets down the hall, throwing open doors. Everyone else hangs back, a little confused.

 

“Window!” Magnus yells, pointing into a room near the end. “Dibs on this one!”

 

He turns back, face falling, as if he’d definitely expected more of a fight over rooms.

 

Lup whispers something to Taako. He snorts.

 

“Well, uh. That should be fine, Magnus. Does anyone else have any preferences?”

 

They dole out the rest of the rooms like adults, with some _hella_ civilized discussion. Lucretia gets the room at the end, with the most space for a desk. Lup and Taako insist on being next door to one another. Davenport gets the room closest to the bridge, just in case. Merle and Barry snatch up the leftovers.

 

Taako nods towards Lup, and she shrugs. Without words, they break off, Taako into his room and Lup into hers. Taako watches her go before ducking in. He takes a quick look around.

 

It’s nothing spectacular: just a bed, a desk, and a shallow closet. The floors are hardwood, the walls are white and sort of bumpy. Taako slides his bag across the floor, and it makes a sad scraping noise before crashing into the foot of the bed. He walks up to the right wall, raises a fist, and knocks twice.

 

A few seconds later, Lup knocks back. Taako smiles, softly. He’s spent a lot more of his life sharing rooms with Lup than flying solo. This is nice, definitely, but part of him is still glad that she’s only a wall away.

 

He can hear her next door, scraping around, unpacking, really making the space hers before takeoff tomorrow. Lup is great at packing and unpacking. Quick and efficient, ready to pack her bags and move away at a moment’s notice. Taako likes to take it slow. He doesn’t unpack until he’s sure they’re there to stay.

 

For now, he collapses onto the bed. A little too springy, but it’s fine. He stretches his arms above his head, reflecting. Tomorrow, they set off on their journey.

 

Tomorrow, they lose it all.

 

While the rest of the crew mourns, Taako sits with Lup on the floor of his room, and they talk. His heart is kind of jittery, and he can’t decide what his arms want to do. He watches her roll around, and brush her hair away from her face, and laugh uncomfortably, and he’s suddenly so afraid of losing her. Not that he’d ever say that, but still. They talk about food, and science, and easy things.

 

“I’m not saying it’s _wrong_ to cook up a big ol’ steak here, I’m just saying the animals talk and no one’s gonna want a bite of that crazy thing.”

 

“The way I cook it, Lup? Please.”

 

She sleeps in his room, sometimes. The rest of the time, he sleeps in hers. They cling to each other in the night, Taako waking up after terrible nightmares in a cold sweat while she brushes the hair out of his face and frowns. It takes a few cycles for them to get comfortable without one another, again. It’s funny how the apocalypse can turn you into a big dopey baby.

 

By cycle fourteen, Taako is pretty used to alone time. Lup’ll wander off sometimes, working in the lab or exploring the world or doing some other rad shit. She still prefers to take Taako with her for most things, but they’ve learned to appreciate the company of the rest of the crew, too. Today, she’s off with Merle somewhere. Taako has decided to have a good old fashioned Taako day in his room.

 

He’s cozy in bed, flipping through a teen romance novel (ironically, of course), when Barry walks in.

 

“Hey, uh, Taako,” he says. “I was wondering if you… I mean, if you aren’t busy, if maybe you wanted to go do something tonight?”

 

Taako raises a perfectly sculpted eyebrow, turning a page pointedly.

 

“It’s a Taako day, Bluejeans. No can do.”

 

Barry sighs, visibly uncomfortable, but doesn’t make a motion to leave. Taako’s eyes hover over the page.

 

“Weren’t you going to try out that tavern today?” asks Taako, taking pity on Barry.

 

“They banned me!” says Barry, obviously getting to the real reason he’s here. “That’s gotta be the third time this week! Everyone here is just so  _suspicious._ The second I drop any hint that I might be looking for something, they kick my butt to the curb!”

 

For maybe the fifth time, Taako reads a sentence where Leading Lady agonizes over the love triangle she finds herself in. The words _yearning_ and _quivering_ are both used, which is pretty much incredible. He dog ears the page, tosses the book aside, and sits up on the bed.

 

“So you’re here for advice,” he says. It’s not a question.

 

“I mean… I guess,” says Barry, going a little red. “It’s just, you’re so good at getting people to talk and stuff, so I figured you’d…”

 

“Sshhhhshsh… Barry, I get it,” says Taako, patting the bed beside him. “I’m charming as shit.”

 

Barry moves to sit on the very edge of the bed, hands between his knees.

 

“It’s like… we’re tryin' to help them, you know? I just need them to listen to me for all of two dang seconds, but as soon as I start explaining stuff…”

 

Taako pats Barry’s shoulder. Poor, naïve Barry.

 

“That’s your problem right there, my man. You’re too honest. You have to assume that no one trusts or likes you without a reason to.”

 

Barry frowns. Well, truth hurts.

 

“What d’you mean a reason?”

 

“Well, people trust Magnus because of that rustic hospitality shit. Fits right in with the townsfolk. And Lup is full of charisma; she knows how to read people and sweet talk anything she wants out of them. With lies, natch.”

 

Barry just seems to be getting more confused.

 

“You and Merle and Davenport… the rest of you all have the same problem. You bust on into a place acting like the world knows your name. No one wants to hear it, Barrison. They just want you to talk about _them._ Make them feel good, offer them something useful, or else prove to them you’re not a threat and fade into the scenery a bit.”

 

Taako waves his hand, like he’s doing a really cool magic trick.

 

“That one’s my bag. Play it super dumb, pretend to be a major doofus, and you’ll fade right into the background like no one’s business.”

 

“Um… what?”

 

“Good, see? You’ve got it already.”

 

Barry frowns, his face creasing in solemn thought. It totally ruins the effect.

 

“I think… maybe I’ll just leave it to Lup and Magnus for now,” says Barry, standing up and making his way back out of the room with quick, supremely uncomfortable steps.

 

Taako shrugs.

 

“Well, that’s your thing, then.”

 

Taako hooks his knee over his leg, swinging back onto the bed and grabbing his shitty book.

 

“Uh, thanks?” says Barry, sounding unsure about whether he should be thankful or not.

 

“Anytime, there, bucko.”

 

He licks a finger and flips the page.

 

Taako collects trinkets over the years, books and supplies and clothes, and his room takes on a character all his own. It’s messy, dangerously so, and Davenport has begged him to clean it at least thirty separate times. But Taako is comfortable with his space. He brushes off the bed when he needs to sleep, and tosses things back on the mattress to clear a path in the morning. He barely ever stubs his toes, because he’s just magical like that.

 

All things considered, Taako doesn’t spend a lot of time in his cabin. He drifts more towards the kitchen, or the common spaces, or his sister’s room. The thing is, Taako puts up a lot of defenses, pretending to be the lone wolf type, teasing people, shutting out social contact. But he harbors a dark secret, a hidden desire to love and be loved by basically everyone he meets.

 

The crew adjusts to him slowly, learning to examine the things he says, turn them over, and lay them in place. To cut to the heart of his words, to focus on actions, to appreciate intention over meaning. Taako grows closer to the others with a half-smile, a perfect dessert, a shared joke.

 

Of course, there’s no one on the crew that knows Taako better than Lup does. The two share a bond that has propelled the mission forward since day one, an unbreakable sort of thing that goes beyond words or feelings. They’re like two parts of the same, rad-as-hell person.

 

And when he loses her, it hurts worse than losing his entire fucking heart.

 

Lup doesn’t die often. And she definitely doesn’t die without a really cool reason. In cycle twenty-two, she uses her final spell slot to send Taako away with the light of creation, just as they’re swarmed by an army of orcs. Shoots him a lazy salute.

 

“Catch you on the flip.”

 

Smiles.

 

Taako’s heart beat so fast after that, and hurt so much, that he’d thought he might die of some heart thing. He’d _hoped_ he would. It would be better than living the next four months of his life without her. He couldn’t fathom a world where Lup was any more than a wall away.

 

There’s a floor-length mirror in Taako’s cabin. He stands in front of it, and focuses in on his reflection, feeling the ache under his ribcage. He sees Lup in every part of himself, and it hurts so bad he might throw up.

 

They’re identical, which is great because they’re both super fine. But there’s more to it than that. She’s there in his pyjamas, a worn old pair that she used to have a copy of. She’s in his front teeth, which were knocked out by her rogue magic missile, and grew in kind of crooked as she apologized through some frankly uncalled-for laughter. She’s in all the scars on his knees, from running, and falling, and getting back up to carry on. She’s in the shape of his eyes, the length of his ears, the slope of his nose, the beating of his heart.

 

And yet, he’s different. In the smoothness of his hands, where hers are burned to hell. In the way he styles his hair like he actually gives a shit. They have different tattoos, but the public can never know where or of what. And, of course, Taako is cool with his shoulders and voice and the fact that he could grow a really gross mustache on a whim, if he ever felt the need. Lup radiated happiness as these things went away, as their aunt bought her a bra and her jawline fleshed out a bit more than his and her body shape changed. She likes science and math and blowing stuff up. He likes cooking and words and making things new. They’re identical, but they aren’t. They are each other and themselves.

 

Taako turns away from the mirror, deciding that it maybe isn’t so fun to just stand there, torturing himself. He moves back to the bed, snatching up a pile of Lup’s notes that he’s been chilling with for a few days now.

 

She’d been working on some sort of evocation thing based on this world’s elemental structure. It’s hella nerdy, and kind of gross, and Taako doesn’t fuck with evocation or know the math in this world. Still, though, he tries to work on it, to help her out so she can take a look once she comes back.

 

It really doesn’t help that Lup has probably the worst handwriting he’s ever seen. Which makes no sense at all, because he has the _same damn hands_ and his writing is beautiful.

 

“Taako?”

 

He wipes away his tears, quickly, and smirks towards the door.

 

“Yeah, come on in.”

 

Lucretia opens the door hesitantly, searching for the hurt in Taako’s expression. He fights to stay as unreadable as possible.

 

She opens the door wider, after a brief fight with a scarf caught at the bottom. She pauses again, searching.

 

Taako looks away.

 

Lucretia makes her way around the clutter, and sits down next to Taako, not saying anything. She glances at Lup’s notes, and he feels the insane urge to tear them away from her, hide them, keep them for only himself.

 

He expects Lucretia to say some shit. Something about how Lup’ll be back, or how the rest of them miss her too, or anything. Or worse, maybe Lucretia’ll try to hug him, comfort him for a sadness he’s fighting so hard to put away, right now.

 

The seconds stretch out into minutes, and, slowly, he relaxes. They sit like that, next to each other, in silence, for a long time before Taako goes back to the notes, reading them with a slightly clearer head.

 

When he’s done with the first page, he hands it to Lucretia. She takes it without saying anything, and Taako feels a stupid joke die somewhere on its way to his lips.

 

He keeps quiet, and so does she, and somewhere, on the other end of the ship, the bond engine glows with some of the kick it lost with Lup.

 

Lup sleeps in Taako’s room for about a month after she comes back. She makes fun of his sleepy sack maybe a little less than usual. They’re even again.

 

Lup slots back into Taako’s life like nobody’s business. Stays there.

 

In cycle forty-one, she is absolutely destroying him at fantasy scrabble.

 

“There’s no fucking way that’s a word,” says Taako.

 

“Mm hmm, squax. Those things in cycle thirteen with all the legs. Miss those little dudes.”

 

“You can’t use words from a whole other plane of existence! Nope. No way.”

 

“Wow, I just did though. That’s weird.”

 

Taako huffs out a breath, adjusting his legs on his pile of pillows.

 

“Fine, whatev. You played a q and an x, so that’s another shirt and an inappropriate comment.”

 

“Small price to pay.”

 

Lup reaches for a random shirt from Taako’s Laundry Mess, pulling it over the four she’s already wearing. It’s a pretty incredible sequinned number that stretches dangerously over her puffy torso. A few more q’s and he’ll have to roll her out of here.

 

Lup leans back and bats the door to Taako’s room open.

 

“HEY MAGNUS!” she yells, top of her head pressed to the floor.

 

He shows up right away, like he was summoned from some pocket dimension.

 

“Yeah?”

 

She aims finger guns at him from above her head.

 

“Lookin’ good today, hot stuff.”

 

Magnus blinks.

 

“Oh, punishment scrabble, huh? Can I play?”

 

Lup cackles, swinging herself back into sitting position. Magnus hadn’t thought it was a real complement for even a second. Taako admires that about him, somehow.

 

“Nope, sorry. Twin game only, I’m just about to crush this fool.”

 

Taako snorts.

 

“In your _dreams_.”

 

Magnus shrugs, taking in Taako’s inside-out pants, the doodles on his face, and the socks on his hands.

 

“Next time?”

 

“Sure, bud,” says Lup, easing the door closed again. Magnus’ excited thanks are muffled by the door.

 

It is a well-known fact that the best games have real consequences. The twins had learned this at a young age, and had created punishment scrabble in a drunken night of genius inspiration. In punishment scrabble, any word worth more than 50 points means the player gets to make up a new rule for the other person. It carries over, too, the more games you play the worse it gets.

 

It’s getting pretty wet and wild in here.

 

Taako’s move takes him like a full minute and a lot of flopping around with the socks on his hands. Lup watches stoically, her hands folded underneath her chin. He finally hammers out “flip”, and an evil grin spreads across Lup’s face.

 

“Four letters. You know… I think I want to play this next round against a bird. Not a cool bird, though. Like a chicken or something. Go on.”

 

Taako rolls his eyes. He’s almost out of spell slots from this dumb fucking rule. With a wave of his wand and a loud squawk, he’s looking up at his sister from overtop of his brand new chicken beak. She still has the same evil expression on.

 

He’s gonna get her back so good for this one.

 

Even through the suffering, there’s nothing Taako loves more than these lazy afternoons with Lup. They hole up together, shut out the world, and just forget about the drama of it all for a while. Taako allows himself this, at least.

 

They stick together through everything, just as they always have. Their world expands, and their family grows. They find homes outside of one another.

 

In cycle fifty-eight, Davenport knocks on the door. It’s wide open, anyway, but he’s acting sort of fidgety and nervous.

 

Taako is sitting on the floor, painting Magnus’ nails a really killer shade of blue. The dude pretty much gasps with every brushstroke. Magnus looks up, moving his hand a bit so the polish flicks across his fingertip. Taako clicks his tongue, reaching for a cotton swab.

 

“Taako? Magnus?”

 

Taako looks up, to see their noble captain, looking extremely uncomfortable. Taako frowns. He senses disaster in the air.

 

“What’s up, cap’nport?” asks Magnus, pulling his hand away from Taako and turning to face Davenport.

 

“I…” he leans against the door frame, avoiding eye contact. “What is… a meme?”

 

Magnus bursts into laughter, and Taako falls backwards onto the floor, cancelling this conversation.

 

The world they’re in right now has all these giant boards where people post whatever they want to, basically. A lot of them are memes. Taako and Magnus and Lup and Lucretia caught on pretty fast, and the other three just kind of struggle, like, a lot.

 

“I want to communicate with the locals. I made a few of these… memes… but I don’t think it worked. I… you two seem to understand, can you tell me? What’s a meme?”

 

“I’m in hell,” Taako mumbles.

 

“You made memes?” asks Magnus, sounding genuinely curious.

 

“Um, yes,” says Davenport, producing a few pieces of paper. “No one seemed to engage with them, much.”

 

Taako sits up, a dark curiosity getting the better of him. He makes grabby hands at Davenport until he walks over and gives Taako the papers. Taako sighs deeply, collecting himself before flipping through them.

 

His skeleton instantly leaves his body. Nothing is okay.

 

There is a baby with a clenched fist that reads “transcribes data… no mist8kes!!!” Followed by a terrible drawing of the Starblaster defeating the hunger with the caption “pwned” and then an angry-looking cat that says “wen u cant has cheezburger.”

 

Magnus giggles at the cat one.

 

Taako places the papers face-down on the floor, and lays back down.

 

“I was hoping you could offer some… criticisms?” asks Davenport, grimacing.

 

“I liked the last one,” offers Magnus.

 

“No. Please. I’m dying,” says Taako.

 

“I aimed to engage with the world, while subtly telling them about our mission. That’s what this one was for…”

 

Davenport reaches for the pile, and Taako clamps his foot over the papers.

 

“Captain, this is not a goof, if I have to look at those again, my soul will leave this plane. Goodbyeeeee Taako’s soul.”

 

There’s a flush of pink in Davenport’s cheeks. He coughs into his fist, trying to collect his dignity from where it lies, under Taako’s gorgeously pedicured foot.

 

“Fine, if… if I… I mean, if you don’t think I can accomplish this, then I’ll have to leave it to you two.”

 

Taako groans.

 

“Hell yeah!” says Magnus, punching Taako’s arm lightly. “We’re gonna make the best meme ever.”

 

“Something that engages with the audience, while planting the idea of us and our goals,” says Davenport. “And I’ll head out with Lucretia afterwards to attempt true contact.”

 

“Sounds good, cap’n! Leave it to us, right Taako?” asks Magnus.

 

Taako’s soul is hanging on by a thread, here.

 

He rolls over, kicking at the wall three times. A distress signal, born from simpler days.

 

Within seconds, Lup pokes her head around the corner, eyes bleary with sleep.

 

“You rang, bro?”

 

Taako sits up again, grimacing at her.

 

“We have a meme situation.”

 

“Oh,” she says, ears twitching. “Oh dear.”

 

She pushes past Davenport, reaching for the papers that Taako kicks at her. He has pretty much never been happier to see her, and yes that includes the times she's regenerated after dying, probably. She is tired and makeup-less, and wearing one of Barry’s shirts, which, gross.

 

“Ah, perfect, Lup,” says Davenport, before she can flip the papers over. “You can help these two, they’ll brief you on what, yes, anyway, I have some… ship… things, captain… ship… goodbye…”

 

Davenport takes off down the hallway as fast as his legs can carry him, just before Lup bursts into obnoxious laughter.

 

She doubles over, pushing the papers out of the way, wiping tears from her eyes, fully awake now.

 

“What… the… f…. _fuck_ ….”

 

“Wow, Lup, you really like the captain’s jokes, huh?” asks Magnus.

 

Taako rolls his eyes, reaching up to grab a pen from his desk. They’ve got a lot of work to do.

 

Taako has never been one for hard work. Well, that’s not entirely true. He works hard when it matters. He's thrown everything he has into cooking and magic and IPRE exams. He doesn’t like to half-ass things, so it’s either go big or don’t bother.

 

So it super isn’t Taako’s thing to work as much as he has to for the hundred years of their mission. The problem is all of it matters. If Taako doesn’t work hard, if any one of the seven of them shirk their business, it could be the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands of people. Or animals. Or robots. One time it was bugs, which wasn’t great.

 

So when they end up in a chill farm world in cycle 90, with the light of creation secured, Taako takes a well-earned break from it all. He’s been going too hard for too long, and he hasn’t had a proper worry-free chill sesh since the beach world. Even then, he’d worked on his beach persona, and invented surfing.

 

But it’s been years since then. So many years. And he’s _tired._ Maybe the most tired. He sleeps away the days, holed up in his room, sometimes hanging out with the others, but mostly just napping and thinking and shit.

 

He would say the years were wearing away at him, if that didn’t make him sound like a gross old man.

 

He is rudely awakened by the door to his room flying open. Which knocks over a pile of heirlooms. Which make a crashing sound like the end of the world. Which is a sound Taako is sadly _very_ familiar with.

 

“Whuftheuk…!”

 

Taako nearly jumps out of his skin, bolting upwards and yanking the blanket up to his chin.

 

The light is on, now, and as Taako’s eyes adjust to the brightness, his gaze falls on Merle. Right beside him. Like, weirdly close.

 

Taako takes a moment to register what the actual fuck, his heart racing, then hisses when he realizes the situation. He pulls the blanket over his head, retreating against the wall.

 

“Not today!” says Merle, clapping.

 

“Leave me alone,” Taako pleads, pressing his face into a pillow.

 

“I just said not today, punk!”

 

Taako clings to the blanket with all of his strength as Merle tries to wrench it from him.

 

“Merle, I appreciate what you’re going for here, but actually fuck this.”

 

“It’s almost noon,” says Merle, letting the blanket fall. Taako relaxes again, one leg and half his bare chest surrendered to the open air.

 

“That’s, like, the middle of the night in Taako time,” Taako protests.

 

“Which is a dang problem!” says Merle. “Come on, up and at ‘em. We’ve got some fieldwork to do yet, and Magnus threw out his shoulder lifting hay yesterday.”

 

“I’m fine! Shut up!” comes Magnus’ voice, from down the hall.

 

Taako gestures towards the voice.

 

“See? He’s fine.”

 

Merle sighs.

 

“Look, Taako. If you don’t wanna come help us, that’s fine. But I think some fresh air’d do you real good. Good farming takes some good, hard work! And… we’re worried about you, buddy.”

 

Taako frowns, rolling over to face Merle. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Lup, watching from the doorway. She’s frowning slightly, arms crossed. She would look casual, almost bored, to literally anyone else, but Taako knows her better than he knows himself. And she’s worried, yeah.

 

Fuck.

 

He waits for a few beats, trying to fight away the guilt. He’s allowed himself to let down so many people, before. Worlds and worlds of people disappointed in him, from the one he was born in to the one now. He’s starting to let himself disappoint the crew, too, which, not great. But then there’s Lup. He knows he can’t let her down like this.

 

“Fine,” he mumbles, and Merle actually laughs. Lup slinks away with a smile, while Merle starts babbling about turnips or something.

 

“Yeah, yeah, whatev. Let me get dressed, here.”

 

Taako makes himself work for her. For all of them. The fresh air wakes him up a bit, and having a routine gets him back in the swing of things. He hardens with time, and forces himself to become stronger. He draws his strength from the six of them, bonds stretched through time and space, heart divided into seven.

 

When the seven pieces fall apart, Taako does too.

 

A person can’t live with one seventh of a heart.

 

After all is said and done, after Taako remembers and the hunger is defeated and his family is returned to him, Taako gets to work on his hardest project yet.

 

How can he put himself back together, after a hundred years of falling apart?

 

There’s no one way, he learns. His healing is in his sister, on the day she shows up in her body, and scoops him into her arms. In Merle and Magnus, as alcohol warms his belly and stories flow and laughter fills him up. In teasing Barry, in magic lessons with Angus, in building an empire with Ren, in letters from Davenport and the… occasional word from Lucretia.

 

And, of course, in the man who sleeps beside him now, with Taako tucked into his arms. It’s maybe the safest feeling in the whole world, which is kind of gross in a warm and happy way.

 

Kravitz had laughed for a long time at the sight of Taako’s old cabin. Taako’s tried to keep their house relatively clean since they moved in together, because Kravitz is tidy like that. This room is like everything they’d clashed over in their first few months of living together, on display for the world to see.

 

Taako had opened his mouth to make some joke, and Kravitz had silenced him with a doughy smile and a “nice place you’ve got, here.”

 

They’d practically collapsed into bed after a day of festivities, and Kravitz had fallen asleep basically as soon as his head hit the pillow. Taako doesn’t technically need to sleep, so he doesn’t sleep, yet.

 

Instead, he curls up in Kravitz’s arms, letting love wash over him. Feeling Kravitz’s hair tickling his cheek and Kravitz’s warm breath on his neck. He never tells anyone about these moments, where he just kind of watches Kravitz and melts. He would be destroyed by teasing if any of his family caught wind of this one.

 

Taako’s mind races through the events of the day, spent talking and laughing and adventuring through a little tourist village with his favourite people. His mind crackles as it replays his greatest moments, his loved ones' faces, the voices of his family, and he falls asleep to the sound of his sister’s laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowwww this update took forever. We’re getting into more character-study type territory with the cabins, which is trickier for me. Also I’ve started planning a new fic that’s, like, story-based, so that’s been a thing. We’ll see how that goes! Thanks for reading and commenting and kudosing :D


	10. Magnus' Cabin

By the time all of the rooms are doled out, Magnus is already completely unpacked. Clothes in closet, pillows on bed, collectable ceramic puppy figurines secured, snacks stashed. Ready for a real good couple of months.

 

“How’s it going over there, Merle?” Magnus shouts across the hall. Magnus’ door is wide open, ready to talk to his new friends as soon as possible. Merle’s door is just a little cracked, but at least it isn’t closed. The universal symbol of being ready for a chat.

 

After a few seconds, Magnus figures Merle just hadn’t heard him. Oh well.

 

He pushes himself to his feet off of the bed, and goes to look out the window. It’s a little low to the ground, accommodating for the shorter members of their team. Magnus has to hunch down to see through it, a round sort of porthole view of the IPRE building’s main courtyard greeting him. He can hardly wait for all of the things he’s gonna see through this window. The blue of the sky, the darkness of space, the stars up close, maybe even a strange new world, if they make it that far. His parents are gonna be so proud.

 

As it turns out, Magnus doesn’t spend a whole lot of time looking through that window. As the world dissolves to nothingness, Magnus springs into one hundred years of action, the first out the door in the morning, the last to come home at night. The window was built to distance him from places that he longs to be a part of. He’s an explorer and a fighter. He doesn’t let the window separate him from the things he has to do.

 

In cycle sixteen, Magnus’ adventurous nature gets him into a fair amount of trouble.

 

Magnus is no stranger to cuts and bruises. He comes back to the ship with injuries more often than not, having fought people for supplies, or territory, or honor. This latest world is a cruel world, and the crew is struggling.

 

Some sort of catastrophic event ended civilization here years ago, and the last dregs of society are clinging desperately to life in a place that doesn’t care about them at all. Magnus feels awful, having to fight them. He wishes they could just get along, but most of them are too far gone.

 

And so, he develops strategies. He’s the muscle of the mission, and this is his job. No matter how often Davenport insists that they’ve moved beyond their roles by now, Magnus still feels this sense of duty.

 

His second in command on this mission is Lucretia, oddly enough. They hunker down together, Magnus’ real-life experience intertwining with her careful note-taking to create strategies for survival in this forgotten wasteland.

 

“What’s in your bug-out bag, Lucretia?”

 

Lucretia sits cross-legged in the corner, and looks up from a sketch of a water filtration system, tapping her pencil twice on the edge of the paper. She holds the paper to the back of her journal, Magnus’ IPRE-supplied desk having been swallowed by laundry long ago.

 

“Magnus, I need you to understand that when you make up words, you are also in charge of explaining those words.”

 

Magnus gets up and slaps his own sketch on top of hers, a backpack with some simple doodles, labelled. He’d even tried to throw some shading in there, but it had mostly just covered up some of his really great details.

 

“A bug-out bag! It’s a thing! What are you gonna take with you when shit hits the fan?”

 

Lucretia shrugs.

 

“I was thinking… a well-stocked spaceship with a crew and everything. That would sure be nice to have.”

 

Magnus frowns at her.

 

“Okay, but I mostly just want to explain my drawing to you. Ready?”

 

“…. Sure. Born ready.”

 

“Okay…”

 

He takes a deep breath, and starts sliding his finger along the paper, reading out the items.

 

“Rope, matches, a tarp, rations, water purification tablets, signal flares, cheesecake…”

 

“Cheesecake?”

 

The corner of Lucretia’s mouth quirks up in a grin.

 

“Of course cheesecake! You’re out in the apocalypse, everything is sad, you reach in your bag, it’s your old friend cheesecake. Hello, Lucretia, I’m here to make you happy again. Just another day in the life of cheesecake…”

 

Lucretia absentmindedly doodles a cheesecake in the corner of the bag as Magnus carries on. Her careless doodle is about a million times better than Magnus’ actual, careful, drawing and it’s super unfair. He pulls the sheet away before she makes it so artistic he has to frame it or something.

 

“Hope and cheesecake, I’m telling you.”

 

“You sure are.”

 

The crew pulls on through the apocalypse, and the twins make cheesecake to celebrate. It becomes something of a joke among them, but Magnus gets cheesecake out of it, so he’s the real winner in this scenario.

 

Nothing about their journey is easy. Sometimes there are moments of joy, or peace, things that make the bond engine hum and the ship sputter to life. These moments are weighted, though, by obligation. Everything they do is meant to work towards their goal of saving the world. It’s a huge responsibility for seven lonely travelers. It’s a weight that presses down on them in even the best of times.

 

In the worst of times, this weight becomes pretty much unbearable. Magnus is the youngest person on this journey, just a human who was never meant to be pushed to these limits of time and space. His young brain is so, so, breakable, and he cries a lot, and hugs his team, and isn’t ashamed.

 

In the worst of times, he turns to his family. Sometimes, the worst of times stretches, forms itself into a stifling sheet of fog that wears away at him. He fights off the bad feelings just as he fights off everything else, with strength and courage and real emotion.

 

His emotions get the better of him, on the cycle 36 nights.

 

“Magnus?”

 

The voice is croaky, distant, the broken call of someone who hasn’t rested in a very long time.

 

“Hmm.”

 

He hears footsteps on the edge of his room, stifled by the piece of carpet he’d laid down. They hover at the edge of the room, just inside the door, and his stomach twists.

 

“You can come in.”

 

A little closer, now. He sees the shape of Lup, silhouetted in darkness, lit dimly by the porthole window.

 

“Can’t sleep, bud?”

 

He sighs, and it turns into a choked sort of gasp. His chest is burning. His bed feels cold and hard, and he smells something putrid in the distance. He squeezes his eyes shut,  breathing harder and harder. The bed dips beside him, and he steadies as he feels an arm thrown around his shoulders.

 

He opens his eyes, slowly, and there’s Lup, facing him, lying next to him, solid and warm, her hair mussed up and her expression tense in the moonlight.

 

“You good, Mags?”

 

He remembers a scene, played over and over again, from a few months ago. Was it really only a few months ago? Lying with Lup on a cold stone floor as guards poked and prodded and yelled. Enveloped in darkness, days blending into nights, feeling his ribs pressing against his skin, his tongue dry and pillowy, clinging to Lup with the last of his strength and trying not to cry out his last fluids. Holding out hope for a rescue that never came.

 

When he and Lup appeared again, woven into existence by silvery light, there were more arms waiting for him. Hugs of relief from Lucretia, the Captain, Merle, Barry, even Taako, quickly, once he was mostly done with Lup. The crew sat with them, horrified, as they told their story. The capture, the waiting, the execution.

 

But no one really understands. On these nights, when the nightmares swallow Magnus up and he drinks and drinks without ever feeling satiated and trembles in the wake of his porthole window, he feels truly alone, even more alone than he’d been in the dungeon.

 

In the dungeon, he’d had Lup. But Lup isn’t one for dwelling on the past. Something about growing up in a million different places. She and Taako both have their share of horror stories that have come up over thirty-six years of conversation. She knows how to keep the past in the past, or she pretends to, at least.

 

“Taako and I used to sleep like this when we were kids," says Lup, slowly. "When… you know. When shit got real.”

 

He hears a hitch in her voice, and tears prickle the corners of his eyes. He feels her arms trembling around him. She’s maybe crying, too. He hates the sound of it but, somehow, feels less alone.

 

“It’s hard, Magnus. It’s… fuck, this sucks. Let’s just…”

 

Her sentence lies unfinished, fading until it’s lost. Neither of them chase it. He focuses on her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest against his, and he wakes up in the morning, still facing her, still whole.

 

When things are bad, they get really bad.

 

But then, there’s the good. And there’s quite a lot of good.

 

Some of the worlds they visit are so full of possibilities that Magnus’ heart swells every time he wakes up with another day of exploring ahead of him.

 

“Check it, I found another one,” says Taako, walking into Magnus’ room with a puppy held aloft.

 

Magnus’ heart instantly melts.

 

He scoops up the three puppies he was already playing with, and they bark and wiggle in his arms.

 

“Pretty great, huh? I found him outside, I think he wants to join the party.”

 

This puppy is some sort of Pomeranian, Magnus thinks. Very, very fluffy. He looks at home in Taako’s arms.

 

“I… love him,” says Magnus, throat constricted with emotion.

 

“I’ll just add him to the pile,” says Taako, setting the Pomeranian on the floor of Magnus’ room.

 

The puppy's claws clack against the hardwood as he takes off towards Magnus. Taako shoots him some finger guns.

 

“Look, he’s trained to sniff out dipshits.”

 

Magnus ignores him, reaching down towards the puppy. Nothing can sour Magnus’ mood in cycle-fifty-two-Puppy-Planet. Not even Taako’s teasing.

 

He squats down, and the Pomeranian rushes up, tongue lolling to the side and tail wagging furiously. He puts two tiny, impossibly fluffy paws on Magnus’ leg, and Magnus gasps a little.

 

“Yeah! Welcome to team Magnus, buddy!”

 

He reaches down to scoop up his new friend, and the retriever puppy he'd been holding falls out of his grip, landing on the floor with a whine.

 

“Wait! Shit! I can do this, hold on…”

 

He tries to adjust himself, and the border collie slips, front legs sticking out at an odd angle, whimpering.

 

“Sorry! Wait, I’ll…”

 

He spends a few minutes cycling between each puppy, trying desperately to keep all of their tiny, wiggly tails and legs and noses in check.

 

“Taako…”

 

Magnus looks up at Taako, holding the Pomeranian in one arm and the corgi upside-down in the other.

 

Taako raises an eyebrow at him.

 

“Taako… I can’t…”

 

He chokes out his words past the lump in his throat, hot tears rolling down his cheeks.

 

“Taako, I can’t hold them all. I can’t hug all the puppies, Taako.”

 

“That’s rough.”

 

Magnus grins.

 

“Rough! Like… dogs! I get it!”

 

He drops the dogs to shoot finger guns at Taako, making a few ‘I-get-it-it’s-a-pun’ noises.

 

Taako rolls his eyes, flattening his hat over his ears.

 

“Nope. That’s not allowed.”

 

He turns and walks away, and Magnus laughs, collapsing back into his pile of puppy friends.

 

Magnus makes a lot of friends, over the years. Leaving them behind is never easy.

 

When he rescues the jellyfish at the Legato Conservatory, he's not even thinking straight as he rushes back to the ship. Nothing like Fisher has ever made it, before. He's already named his friend Fisher. 

 

When the threads knit them together, though, Fisher is still there. Magnus is confused and relieved and thrilled to have the company. Any new friend after so many years with the same six people is such a special thing. Not that Magnus doesn’t enjoy the company of Lucretia and Merle and them, he’s just always happy to share the love a little.

 

Magnus has known Fisher for ten years by now, so he knows what his buddy likes. He's has carved more animals and things than he can even count, all taken in with delight and humming and some exceptionally squishy hugs.

 

Today, Magnus is gonna change it up a bit. He’s assembled a panel of creative-types, and he’s gonna create something really special for his tenth anniversary of meeting Fisher.

 

“I can, uh, play the piano?” says Barry, adjusting his glasses with a frown.

 

“It’s been a while, but maybe I could retrain my voice?” says Davenport, shrugging.

 

“My dancing is a solitary art. Solitary and _very_ erotic,” says Merle.

 

“Gross,” says Magnus. “Anyway, I was thinking we should all work together to make something totally new. Something none of us have trained in, you know? From the heart.”

 

“Did you have something in mind, there, buddy?” asks Barry.

 

“Of course!”

 

Magnus takes out the script he’s been working on, handing them each a copy.

 

“We’re gonna do some performance art,” says Magnus. “Theatre. It’ll be great.”

 

“Um… okay,” says Davenport.

 

The three of them page through the script, taking it all in. Magnus worked really hard on this one. The tragic tale of two brothers during the end of the world. He’ll play the dark and mysterious ranger-type, out trying to save humanity from the great threat.

 

“I highlighted for all of you who your characters are,” he explains. “I’ve edited it pretty well, but let me know if you want to change things, once you really get a feel for your character.”

 

“So, what, I’m ‘unstable cowboy’?” asks Barry, rubbing a hand on the back of his neck.

 

“Mm hm. A good fit. You get a lot of good lines in about your cattle. Tugs at the heartstrings.”

 

“Why did you choose me, specifically, to be the ‘troubled single mother’?” asks Davenport.

 

“I needed someone of your fragile stature,” says Magnus. “It makes sense in the role, you’ll have to read more carefully.”

 

Davenport sighs, deeply. Typical Davenport. Magnus loves that guy.

 

“Well, I don’t have any dang parts highlighted, Magnus! Who’m I supposed to be? Am I the brother?” asks Merle.

 

Magnus laughs. What a question.

 

“You can’t be the brother, Merle, you look nothing like me. I ran out of roles for you, so you can be the scarecrow. You get to stand in the background with your arms up.”

 

“You wrote the dang script!” says Merle, “You couldn’t’ve made me a… a hero, or something?”

 

Magnus shrugs.

 

“Anyway, Fisher’s gonna play the part of my brother. It’s interactive art. He’s gonna love it.”

 

They practice for a few hours. Although no one seems as dedicated to the play as Magnus does, he manages to get some okay performances out of all of them. The hardest part is convincing Merle that scarecrows don’t talk. Or maybe it's trying to get Taako to leave the room and stop laughing.

 

Fisher ends up loving it, and that’s all that really matters, anyway.

 

The bottom line is, Magnus would do anything for his friends. His love for these six people plus jellyfish only grows as time goes on. With every orchestrated movement in every doomed world, he recharges at home, with his family, the only people who could possibly understand any part of what he’s feeling. His emotions are complicated, and varied, and he does his best to sort through them with the help of the people who matter the most to him in his life. No matter how painful he feels in his heart, they keep it warm. It goes on to beat another day. Beat by beat, fight by fight, laughter over tears.

 

Magnus just doesn’t know what to do anymore.

 

He’s happy, he thinks. Relieved. Burnt out. Tired.

 

He carves a smooth line into the wing of a duck. Individual feathers take shape under his thumb.

 

He’s sad, he thinks. Worn out.

 

He holds up the duck to inspect it. The sides are uneven. He lowers it, and continues on.

 

The thing about carving is, once you carve off a piece, you can’t put it back on again. If a mistake is made, you have to even it out, match sides, whittle away at it until it looks like the mistake was intentional. But it’s still there. It’s there, and Magnus can feel it. He can’t undo his mistakes. He can’t turn back time.

 

Somewhere, below, someone is turning back time.

 

His finger slips on the knife, and he nicks his thumb a bit. Blood beads up along the cut, and he swears and pops it into his mouth.

 

Just a scratch. No reason to see Merle or anything. Surface level stuff. He’s definitely had worse.

 

A few days later, he takes the duck to Lucretia.

 

He won’t remember the duck, in the immediate years to come.

 

But he will be happy. The years that follow the duck are the happiest of his life, and they remain so even when his hundred years of travel return to him. Call him sentimental, or hopelessly romantic, or heartbroken, but his time with Julia is the happiest he can ever imagine being, before or since or ever. His time with her is painted in antique colours, like a wooden cabin full of smooth edges, bright, smelling like home.

 

The Starblaster, of course, will always be his home as well.

 

It was weird, at first, for Magnus to come back to his old room after all he’s been through.

 

It’s nighttime, and he travels around, hugging everyone goodnight.

 

“Um, sir, I can’t breathe very well right… oogh.”

 

“Shhhhhhh, Angus. No talking. Only hugging.”

 

Magnus holds Angus in his crushing hug for a few more seconds before releasing him. The kid looks a little flushed and confused, but flashes him a toothy grin before shutting the door to his own room. Magnus makes sure to hug all of the original crew. Their hugs are so familiar, and he feels a warmth in his chest that he hasn’t felt like this in a long time.

 

Lup is kind of bony and warm. Barry pats his back awkwardly. Davenport always nervous-giggles. Taako ducks right out of his arms. Merle scoffs. Lucretia’s is the only hug he doesn’t recognize; hesitant, softer than normal.

 

At the end of it all, Magnus collapses into a pile of dogs on his bed, nestling his way in between them. They’re warm and wiggly and sort of smelly, but Magnus loves it.

 

He hugs a dog as he falls asleep, a sliver of moonlight peeking in through the porthole window. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit where Lup and Magnus were held and tortured was very much inspired by a short line in “Taste Test (They Were Delicious)" by Marywhale. It’s so incredible, everyone please read it.

**Author's Note:**

> So I guess I’m writing TAZ fanfic now, hahaha…   
> I found this to be a very interesting thing to write. It’s really hard to capture that McElroy (tm) storytelling style, and since these stories aren't spoken aloud, everyone who writes this stuff has to kind of adapt and choose their own way of portraying the characters. It gets super interesting, I think. I hope I did okay!  
> Also, I totally learned everything I now know about spaceships from about ten minutes of googling. So, uh, sorry for any inaccuracies I guess :’)


End file.
